“Have you ever read this, ma’m?  I am sure you’ll like it.  It’s by the author of ‘The Hooligans of Hackensack.’  It is full of love troubles and mysteries and all sorts of such things.  The heroine strangles her own mother.  Just glance at the title please,—­’Gonderil the Vampire, or The Dance of Death.’  And here is ’The Jokist’s Own Treasury, or, The Phunny Phellow’s Bosom Phriend.’  The funniest thing!—­I’ve read it four times, ma’m, and I can laugh at the very sight of it yet.  And ‘Gonderil,’ —­I assure you it is the most splendid book I ever read.  I know you will like these books, ma’m, because I’ve read them myself and I know what they are.”

“Oh, I was perplexed—­but I see how it is, now.  You must have thought I asked you to tell me what sort of books I wanted—­for I am apt to say things which I don’t really mean, when I am absent minded.  I suppose I did ask you, didn’t I?”

“No ma’m,—­but I—­”

“Yes, I must have done it, else you would not have offered your services, for fear it might be rude.  But don’t be troubled—­it was all my fault.  I ought not to have been so heedless—­I ought not to have asked you.”

“But you didn’t ask me, ma’m.  We always help customers all we can.  You see our experience—­living right among books all the time—­that sort of thing makes us able to help a customer make a selection, you know.”

“Now does it, indeed?  It is part of your business, then?”

“Yes’m, we always help.”

“How good it is of you.  Some people would think it rather obtrusive, perhaps, but I don’t—­I think it is real kindness—­even charity.  Some people jump to conclusions without any thought—­you have noticed that?”

“O yes,” said the clerk, a little perplexed as to whether to feel comfortable or the reverse; “Oh yes, indeed, I’ve often noticed that, ma’m.”

“Yes, they jump to conclusions with an absurd heedlessness.  Now some people would think it odd that because you, with the budding tastes and the innocent enthusiasms natural to your time of life, enjoyed the Vampires and the volume of nursery jokes, you should imagine that an older person would delight in them too—­but I do not think it odd at all.  I think it natural—­perfectly natural in you.  And kind, too.  You look like a person who not only finds a deep pleasure in any little thing in the way of literature that strikes you forcibly, but is willing and glad to share that pleasure with others—­and that, I think, is noble and admirable—­very noble and admirable.  I think we ought all—­to share our pleasures with others, and do what we can to make each other happy, do not you?”

“Oh, yes.  Oh, yes, indeed.  Yes, you are quite right, ma’m.”

But he was getting unmistakably uncomfortable, now, notwithstanding Laura’s confiding sociability and almost affectionate tone.