Thorpe wondered if in his time he could have looked such
a vacant and sour young fool. No--no. That could not be.
Boys were different in his day--and especially boys
in book-shops. They read something and knew something
of what they handled. They had some sort of aspirations,
fitful and vague as these might be, to become in their
time bookmen also. And in those days there still
were bookmen--widely-informed, observant, devoted old
bookmen--who loved their trade, and adorned it.
Thorpe reflected that, as he grew older, he was the better
able to apprehend the admirable qualities of that departed
race of literature's servants. Indeed, it seemed that he
had never adequately realized before how proud a man might
well be of descending from a line of such men. The thought
struck him that very likely at this identical doorway,
two generations back, a poor, out-at-the-elbows, young
law-student named Plowden had stood and turned over pages
of books he could not dream of buying. Perhaps, even, he had
ventured inside, and deferentially picked acquaintance
with the Thorpe of the period, and got bookish advice
and friendly counsel for nothing. It was of no real
significance that the law-student grew to be Lord Chancellor,
and the bookseller remained a book-seller; in the realm
of actual values, the Thorpes were as good as the Plowdens.
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