He would know. Yes, and he would know who
bought all his papers and books and pamphlets, and to know this
is to know something about the people in the world. You cannot
tell a man by the lobster he eats, but you can tell something
about him by the literature he reads.
For instance, I once occupied a carriage on an eastern line with,
among others, a middle-aged woman. As soon as we left Liverpool
Street she produced a bag of shrimps, grasped each individual in
turn firmly by the head and tail, and ate him. When she had
finished, she emptied the ends out of the window, wiped her
hands, and settled down comfortably to her paper. What paper?
You'll never guess; I shall have to tell you--The Morning Post.
Now doesn't that give you the woman? The shrimps alone, no; the
paper alone, no; but the two to-gether. Conceive the holy joy of
the bookstall clerk as she and her bag of shrimps-- yes, he could
have told at once they were shrimps--approached and asked for The
Morning Post.
The day can never be dull to the bookstall clerk. I imagine him
assigning in his mind the right paper to each customer. This man
will ask for Golfing--wrong, he wants Cage Birds; that one over
there wants The Motor--ah, well, The Auto-Car, that's near
enough. Soon he would begin to know the different types; he would
learn to distinguish between the patrons of The Dancing Times and
of The Vote, The Era and The Athenaeum.
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