文档介绍：THE HAUNTED BOOKSHOP
THE HAUNTED
BOOKSHOP
BY CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
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THE HAUNTED BOOKSHOP
Chapter I
The Haunted Bookshop
If you are ever in Brooklyn, that borough of superb sunsets and
magnificent vistas of husband-propelled baby-carriages, it is to be hoped
you may chance upon a quiet by-street where there is a very remarkable
bookshop.
This bookshop, which does business under the unusual name
"Parnassus at Home," is housed in one of fortable old brown-stone
dwellings which have been the joy of several generations of plumbers and
cockroaches. The owner of the business has been at pains to remodel the
house to make it a more suitable shrine for his trade, which deals entirely
in second-hand volumes. There is no second-hand bookshop in the world
more worthy of respect.
It was about six o'clock of a cold November evening, with gusts of
rain splattering upon the pavement, when a young man proceeded
uncertainly along Gissing Street, stopping now and then to look at shop
windows as though doubtful of his way. At the warm and shining face of
a French rotisserie he halted pare the number enamelled on the
transom with a memorandum in his hand. Then he pushed on for a few
minutes, at last reaching the address he sought. Over the entrance his eye
was caught by the sign:
PARNASSUS AT HOME R. AND H. MIFFLINBOOKLOVERS
E! THIS SHOP IS HAUNTED
He stumbled down the three steps that led into the dwelling of the
muses, lowered his overcoat collar, and looked about.
It was very different from such bookstores as he had been accustomed
to patronize. Two stories of the old house had been thrown into one: the
lower space was divided into little alcoves; above, a gallery ran round the
wall, which carried books to the ceiling. The air was heavy with the
delightful fragrance of mellowed paper and leather surcharged with a
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THE HAUNTED BOOKSHOP
strong bouquet of o. In front of him he found a large placard in a
frame:
THIS SHOP IS HAUNTED by t