“Mr. Gilbert,” he went on, “do not laugh at me when I tell you that I have evolved a whole kitchen philosophy of my own.  I find the kitchen the shrine of our civilization, the focus of all that is comely in life.  The ruddy shine of the stove is as beautiful as any sunset.  A well-polished jug or spoon is as fair, as complete and beautiful, as any sonnet.  The dish mop, properly rinsed and wrung and hung outside the back door to dry, is a whole sermon in itself.  The stars never look so bright as they do from the kitchen door after the ice-box pan is emptied and the whole place is ‘redd up,’ as the Scotch say.”

“A very delightful philosophy indeed,” said Gilbert.  “And now that we have finished our meal, I insist upon your letting me give you a hand with the washing up.  I am eager to test this dish-pantheism of yours!”

“My dear fellow,” said Mifflin, laying a restraining hand on his impetuous guest, “it is a poor philosophy that will not abide denial now and then.  No, no—­I did not ask you to spend the evening with me to wash dishes.”  And he led the way back to his sitting room.

“When I saw you come in,” said Mifflin, “I was afraid you might be a newspaper man, looking for an interview.  A young journalist came to see us once, with very unhappy results.  He wheedled himself into Mrs. Mifflin’s good graces, and ended by putting us both into a book, called Parnassus on Wheels, which has been rather a trial to me.  In that book he attributes to me a number of shallow and sugary observations upon bookselling that have been an annoyance to the trade.  I am happy to say, though, that his book had only a trifling sale.”

“I have never heard of it,” said Gilbert.

“If you are really interested in bookselling you should come here some evening to a meeting of the Corn Cob Club.  Once a month a number of booksellers gather here and we discuss matters of bookish concern over corn-cobs and cider.  We have all sorts and conditions of booksellers:  one is a fanatic on the subject of libraries.  He thinks that every public library should be dynamited.  Another thinks that moving pictures will destroy the book trade.  What rot!  Surely everything that arouses people’s minds, that makes them alert and questioning, increases their appetite for books.”

“The life of a bookseller is very demoralizing to the intellect,” he went on after a pause.  “He is surrounded by innumerable books; he cannot possibly read them all; he dips into one and picks up a scrap from another.  His mind gradually fills itself with miscellaneous flotsam, with superficial opinions, with a thousand half-knowledges.  Almost unconsciously he begins to rate literature according to what people ask for.  He begins to wonder whether Ralph Waldo Trine isn’t really greater than Ralph Waldo Emerson, whether J. M. Chapple isn’t as big a man as J. M. Barrie.  That way lies intellectual suicide.

“One thing, however, you must grant the good bookseller.  He is tolerant.  He is patient of all ideas and theories.  Surrounded, engulfed by the torrent of men’s words, he is willing to listen to them all.  Even to the publisher’s salesman he turns an indulgent ear.  He is willing to be humbugged for the weal of humanity.  He hopes unceasingly for good books to be born.