That's gone out now, I'm told,
since they've moved to the big buildings in Hammersmith.
I did very well at school, too; came out in the first fourteen.
But my father wouldn't carry the thing any further.
He insisted on my going into the shop when I left St. Paul's
and learning the book-business. He had precisely the same
kind of dynastic idea, you know, that you fellows have.
His father and his grand-father had been booksellers,
and he was going to hand on the tradition to me,
and my son after me. That was his idea. And he thought
that Paul's would help this--but that Oxford would
kill it.
"Of course, he was right there--but he was wrong in supposing
there was a bookseller in me. I liked the books well enough,
mind you--but damn the people that came to buy them,
I couldn't stand it. You stood two hours watching to see
that men didn't put volumes in their pockets, and at
the end of that time you'd made a profit of ninepence.
While you were doing up the parcel, some fellow walked off
with a book worth eighteen-pence. It was too slow for me.
I didn't hit it off with the old man, either. We didn't
precisely quarrel, but I went off on my own hook.
I hung about London for some years, trying this thing
and that. Once I started a book-shop of my own--but I
did no good here. Finally I turned it up altogether,
and went to Australia.
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