In Luck at Last

In Luck at Last, by Walter
Besant

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Title: In Luck at Last
Author: Walter Besant
Release Date: June 25, 2005 [EBook #16129]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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IN LUCK AT LAST.

BY WALTER BESANT.

NEW YORK: GEORGE MUNRO'S SONS, PUBLISHERS, 17 TO 27
VANDEWATER STREET.
CHAPTER I.
WITHIN THREE WEEKS
If everyone were allowed beforehand to choose and select for himself
the most pleasant method of performing this earthly pilgrimage, there
would be, I have always thought, an immediate run upon that way of
getting to the Delectable Mountains which is known as the Craft and
Mystery of Second-hand Bookselling. If, further, one were allowed to
select and arrange the minor details--such, for instance, as the "pitch"
and the character of the shop, it would seem desirable that, as regards
the latter, the kind of bookselling should be neither too lofty nor too
mean--that is to say, that one's ambition would not aspire to a great
collector's establishment, such as one or two we might name in
Piccadilly, the Haymarket, or New Bond Street; these should be left to
those who greatly dare and are prepared to play the games of
Speculation and of Patience; nor, on the other hand, would one choose
an open cart at the beginning of the Whitechapel Road, or one of the
shops in Seven Dials, whose stock-in-trade consists wholly of three or
four boxes outside the door filled with odd volumes at twopence apiece.
As for "pitch" or situation, one would wish it to be somewhat retired,
but not too much; one would not, for instance, willingly be thrown
away in Hoxton, nor would one languish in the obscurity of Kentish
Town; a second-hand bookseller must not be so far removed from the
haunts of men as to place him practically beyond the reach of the
collector; nor, on the other hand, should he be planted in a busy
thoroughfare--the noise of many vehicles, the hurry of quick footsteps,
the swift current of anxious humanity are out of harmony with the
atmosphere of a second-hand bookshop. Some suggestion of external
repose is absolutely necessary; there must be some stillness in the air;
yet the thing itself belongs essentially to the city--no one can imagine a

second-hand bookshop beside green fields--so that there should be
some murmur and perceptible hum of mankind always present in the
ear. Thus there are half-a-dozen bookshops in King William Street,
Strand, which seem to enjoy every possible advantage of position, for
they are in the very heart of London, but yet are not exposed to the full
noise and tumult of that overflowing tide which surges round Charing
Cross. Again, there are streets north of Holborn and Oxford Street most
pleasantly situated for the second-hand bookseller, and there are streets
where he ought not to be, where he has no business, and where his
presence jars. Could we, for instance, endure to see the shop of a
second-hand bookseller established in Cheapside?
Perhaps, however, the most delightful spot in all London for a
second-hand bookshop is that occupied by Emblem's in the King's
Road, Chelsea.
It stands at the lower end of the road, where one begins to realize and
thoroughly feel the influences of that ancient and lordly suburb. At this
end of the road there are rows of houses with old-fashioned balconies;
right and left of it there are streets which in the summer and early
autumn are green, yellow, red, and golden with their masses of creepers;
squares which look as if, with the people living in them, they must
belong to the year eighteen hundred; neither a day before nor a day
after; they lie open to the road, with their gardens full of trees. Cheyne
Walk and the old church, with its red-brick tower, and the new
Embankment, are all so close that they seem part and parcel of the
King's Road. The great Hospital is within five minutes' walk, and
sometimes the honest veterans themselves may be seen wandering in
the road. The air is heavy with associations and memories. You can
actually smell the fragrance of the new-made Chelsea buns, fresh from
the oven, just as you would a hundred years ago. You may sit with
dainty damsels, all hoops and furbelows, eating custards at