Chapter 15

"_And merrily embellished by Walter Jack Duncan_"

Thus Mr. Morley entitles his new volume, in which he has occupied himself with books in particular, but also with divers other ingredients such as city and suburban incidents, women, dogs, children, tadpoles, and so on.

_Plum Pudding, $1.75_

THE HAUNTED BOOKSHOP

We have just found an advertisement for "The Haunted Bookshop" which was never released, though it was written before the book was published. Can you guess the writer of it? We're not at liberty to tell, for he would never forgive our mentioning his name.

"THIS SHOP IS HAUNTED!"

Such was the sign that met the eyes of those who entered _Parnassus at Home_, a very unusual bookshop on Gissing Street, Brooklyn. Roger Mifflin, the eccentric booklover who owned the shop, only meant that his shop was haunted by the great spirits of literature, but there were more substantial ghosts about, as the story tells. Read the curious adventures that befell after Titania Chapman came to learn the book business in the mellow atmosphere of the second-hand bookshop of this novel. There was mystery connected with the elusive copy of Carlyle's _Oliver Cromwell_, which kept on disappearing from Roger's shelves. Some readers may remember that Roger Mifflin was the hero of Mr. Morley's first novel, _Parnassus on Wheels_, though this is in no sense a sequel, but an independent story.

_The Haunted Bookshop, $1.75_

SHANDYGAFF

This is the book at the beginning of which its author has placed this bit of explanation:

_SHANDYGAFF_: a very refreshing drink, being a mixture of bitter ale or beer and ginger-beer, commonly drunk by the lower classes of England, and by strolling tinkers, low church parsons, newspaper men, journalists, and prizefighters.... JOHN MISTLETOE: _Dictionary of Deplorable Facts_

Published in the war period, "Shandygaff" brought this humorous letter from J. Edgar Park, of Massachusetts, Presbyterian pastor and author of "The Disadvantages of Being Good":

"This book of Morley's is absolutely useless--mere rot. It has already cost me not only its price but also two candles for an all-night séance and an entire degeneration of my most sad and sober resolutions. Money I needed for shoes, solemnity I needed for my reputation--all have gone to the winds in this nightmare of love, laughter, boyishness, and tobacco-smoke!"

_Shandygaff, $1.75_

PIPEFULS

"These sketches gave me pain to write; they will give the judicious patron pain to read; therefore we are quits. I think, as I look over their slattern paragraphs, of that most tragic hour--it falls about 4 P.M. in the office of an evening newspaper--when the unhappy compiler tries to round up the broodings of the day and still get home in time for supper." _The Author_

"Envelops in clouds of fragrant English many quaint ideas about life, living, and literature ... A belated Elizabethan who has strayed into the twentieth century! These piping little essays are mellow and leisurely!"--_The Sun_, New York

_Pipefuls, $1.75_

KATHLEEN--_a story_

"Kathleen" is about an Oxford undergraduate prank. Members of a literary club, _The Scorpions_, agree to write a serial story on shares. They invent a tale around certain names in an accidentally found letter signed "Kathleen." Their romantic fervor soon takes them off together in search of the real author of the letter. One suspects that Mr. Morley, as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, might have been up to just such pranks. Anyway, consider this dedication: "TO THE REAL KATHLEEN--_With Apologies_." His comedy is as interesting as his essays, its humor pointed by the rapid flow of action.

_Kathleen, $1.25_