Mr. Julian never felt the need to initiate a conversation. More often than not he would stand silently by, as if daring the customer to stay in the shop.
The layout was equally unfriendly. Books were not to be found in alphabetical order, and although there had once been a rough attempt to display them by subject matter, it was no longer effective and copies of Lorna Doone and The Battle for Stalingrad clustered side by side with cookery books in the ‘Modern Plays’ section.
All this was quite deliberate. It was Arnold Julian’s way of screening out poseurs, pseuds and other frivolous dilettantes. Once it had been proved to his satisfaction that he was dealing with a genuine enthusiast all things became possible.
No comments :
Post a Comment