H. Why should she apply to you instead of me?
C. She wished me to use my influence.
H. Dear me, what has INFLUENCE to do with such a matter?
C. Well, I think she thought you would be more likely to examine
her book if you were influenced.
H. Why, what we are here FOR is to examine books--anybody's book
that comes along. It's our BUSINESS. Why should we turn away
a book unexamined because it's a stranger's? It would be foolish.
No publisher does it. On what ground did she request your influence,
since you do not know her? She must have thought you knew her
literature and could speak for it. Is that it?
C. No; she knew I didn't.
H. Well, what then? She had a reason of SOME sort for believing you
competent to recommend her literature, and also under obligations
to do it?
C. Yes, I--I knew her uncle.
H. Knew her UNCLE?
C. Yes.
H. Upon my word! So, you knew her uncle; her uncle knows her literature;
he endorses it to you; the chain is complete, nothing further needed;
you are satisfied, and therefore--
C. NO, that isn't all, there are other ties. I know the cabin
her uncle lived in, in the mines; I knew his partners, too; also I
came near knowing her husband before she married him, and I DID
know the abandoned shaft where a premature blast went off and he
went flying through the air and clear down to the trail and hit
an Indian in the back with almost fatal consequences.
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