Fortescue’s volume had had a long shelf life at Barnegat Books, having been part of the original stock when I bought the place from old Mr. Litzauer some years ago. I didn’t expect to sell it anytime soon either, but that didn’t mean it was destined for the bargain table. It was a worthy volume, the sort of book you liked to have around a bookshop, and this wasn’t the first time I had consulted it. I’d let Fortescue fill me in a few months ago on Zachary Taylor, although I can’t remember much of what I read, or why I’d been interested in the first place. Still, he’d come in handy then-Fortescue, I mean, not Taylor-and he was handy now.

I kept the book on the counter and dipped into it during slow periods, of which there are an abundance in the life of an antiquarian bookman. I did have some traffic that afternoon, and I did do some buying and selling. A regular customer found some mysteries she hadn’t read, along with an out-of-print Fredric Brown she figured she must have read, but wouldn’t mind reading again. I’d had the same thought myself, and was sorry to see the book go before I had another crack at it, but that’s part of the game.

A stout gentleman with a droopy mustache spent a lot of time browsing a six-volume half-leather edition of Oman ’s History of Britain Before the Norman Conquest. I had it tagged at $125, and allowed I would probably take a little less than sticker price for the set, but not a great deal less.

“I’ll be back,” he said finally, and left. And perhaps he would, but I wasn’t counting on it. Customers (or more accurately, noncustomers) use that as an exit line, handing it out to tradesmen the way men tell women, “I’ll call you.” Maybe they will, and then again maybe they won’t, and there’s no point sitting by the phone waiting.