if ye're a down-spirited thing an' want to get away an' can't, ye need books."
1921—"Did you see that movie called 'Oliver Twist'?" FROSH—"Yes, and say, wouldn't that make a peach of a book?"
Young Isaac stood in line at the library to draw out a book. When his turn came he asked, respectfully, "Please give me Miss Alcott's Jew book."
The young lady looked puzzled. "A book by Miss Louisa M. Alcott?" she queried.
"Yes," reiterated Isaac, "her Jew book."
"Can you remember the title?"
"No; but it's her Jew book," he insisted.
"Well, I'll read over some of the titles of her books to you, and perhaps you can tell me the one you want when you hear it read." Patiently she began, "Little Women, Little Men, Under the Lilacs, Rose in Bloom—"
"That's it, that's it!" cried Isaac—"Rosenbloom."
A MAID (handing up two books to a library assistant)—"Will you change these two books, please, for Mrs. Crawley-Smith?"
ASSISTANT—"Are there any others you wish for?"
MAID—"No. Mrs. Crawley-Smith doesn't mind what they are so long as they have big print and a happy ending."
Hard to Find
LIBRARIAN—"What kind of book do you want—fictional, historical, philosophical—?"
PATRON—"Oh, any kind that H.G. Wells hasn't written."
LIBRARIAN—"We have none!"
BOOKSELLERS AND BOOKSELLING
William Dean Howells, at a dinner in Boston, said of modern American letters:
"The average popular novel shows on the novelist's part an ignorance of his trade which reminds me of a New England clerk.
"In a New England village I entered the main street department-store one afternoon and said to the clerk at the book-counter:
"'Let me have, please, the letters of Charles Lamb.'
"'Post-office right across the street, Mr. Lamb,' said the clerk, with a naive, brisk smile."
"You never can tell," said a traveling salesman. "Now you'd think that a little New England village, chock full of church influence and higher education, would be just the place to sell a book like 'David Harum,' wouldn't you? Well, I know a man who took a stock up there and couldn't unload one of 'em. He'd have been stuck for fair if he hadn't had a brilliant idea and got the town printer to doctor up the title for him. As it was, he managed to unload the whole lot and get out of town before the first purchaser discovered that 'David's Harum' wasn't quite what he had led himself to suppose."
Remember what Roger Mifflin says: "When you sell a man a book, you don't sell him just three ounces of paper and ink and glue—you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour, and ships at sea by night—there's all heaven and earth in a book."
PENFIELD—"What do you know about Bestseller's new book?"
CRABSHAW—"Nothing at all. I've merely read all the reviews of it."—Life.
MANAGER—"Can't you find some way to make yourself busy around here?"
BOOKISH NEW SALESMAN—"Milton, in his 'Sonnet on Blindness,' says: 'They also serve who only stand and wait.'"
MANAGER—"Yes, but you must keep in mind that Milton's most famous book was about a fellow that lost his job and went to hades."
"What do you think of my library?"
"I was just looking it over and I notice that you were visited by the same book agents who landed me."
"There's a fellow outside with a volume of poems
(The title, I think is 'The Beautiful Gnomes'),
He says it's the best of poetical tomes."
"I'll see him next Christmas," the publisher said.
"There's a gentleman waiting to tell you about
A novel of his, which, without any doubt
(So he says), will make critics with happiness shout."
"Oh, tell him I'm ill or rheumatic—or dead."
"There's also a lady who's just come away
From Russia; she says that the Reds are at bay,
And she's willing to write it at so much a day."
"I've just left for Portugal, China and Mars."
"And then there's a bookseller—looks like a gink—
From somewhere out West; Indiana, I think.
I'll tell him you're out buying authors a drink."
"A bookseller? In with him! Boy, the cigars!"
—Edward Anthony.
CANVASSER—"May I have a few minutes of your time?"
PROSPECT—"Yes, if you will be brief. What can I do for you; I'm a man of few words."
CANVASSER—"Just the man I'm looking for, my specialty is dictionaries."
BOOMERANGS
See Repartee; Retaliation.
BOOSTING
Boost your city, boost your friend,
Boost the lodge that you attend.
Boost the street on which you're dwelling,
Boost the goods that you are selling.
Boost the people 'round about you,
They can't get along without you,
But success will quicker find them,
If they know that you're behind them.
Boost for every forward movement,
Boost
