John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"How, prithee," Ebenezer asked, looking nervously to the door through which Sayer had made his exit, "when I know no more of bookmaking than doth a bookseller of poetry?"

"Peace, peace!" urged Bragg. "Remember the voice of Reason."

"So be't," Ebenezer said. "Every man to his trade, as Reason hath it. Here's a pound for book and alterations. Commence at once, nor let your eye drift e'en for an instant from the polestar of Reason."

"Very good, sir," Bragg replied, pocketing the money. "Now, 'tis but reasonable, is't not, that a long board may be sawn short, but a short board may not be stretched? And a fat book, likewise, may be thinned, but ne'er a thin book fattened?"

"No Christian man can say you nay," Ebenezer agreed.

"So, then," said Bragg, taking a handsome, fat unruled leather folio from the shelf, "we take us a great stout fellow, spread him open thusly, and compromise him!" Pressing the notebook flat open upon the counter, he ripped out several handfuls of pages.

"Whoa! Stay!" cried Ebenezer.

"Then," Bragg went on, paying him no heed, "since Reason tells us a fine coat may wear shabby, but ne'er a cheap coat fine, we'll just compromise this morocco here and there — " He snatched up a letter opener near at hand and commenced to hack and gouge the leather binding.

"Hold, there! I'faith, my notebook!"

"As for the pages," Bragg continued, exchanging the letter opener for goose quill and inkpot, "ye may rule 'em as't please ye, with Reason as the guide: sidewise" — he scratched recklessly across a half-dozen pages — "lengthwise" — he penned hasty verticals on the same pages — "or what ye will!" He scribbled at random through the whole notebook.

" 'Sbody! My pound!"

"Which leaves only the matter of size," Bragg concluded: "He must be smaller than a folio, yet taller than a quarto. Hark ye, now: methinks the voice of Reason orders — "

"Compromise!" Ebenezer shouted, and brought down his sword upon the mutilated notebook with such a mighty chop that, had Bragg not just then stepped back to contemplate his creation he'd surely have contemplated his Creator. The covers parted: the binding let go; pages flew in all directions. "That for your damned Golden Mean!"

"Madman!" Bragg cried, and ran out into the street. "Oh, dear, help!"

There was no time to lose: Ebenezer sheathed his sword, snatched up the first notebook he spied — which happened to be lying near at hand, over the cash drawer — and fled to the rear of the store, through the print shop (where two apprentices looked up in wonder from their work), and out the back door.

Though several hours yet remained before departure time, Ebenezer went from Bragg's directly to the posthouse, ate an early dinner, and sipped ale restlessly while waiting for Bertrand to appear with his trunk. Never had the prospect of going to Maryland seemed so pleasant: he longed to be off! For one thing, after the adventure in Bragg's establishment he was more than ever disgusted with London; for another, he feared that Bragg, to whom he'd mentioned the Plymouth coach, might send men after him, though he was certain his pound was more than adequate payment for both notebooks. And there was another reason: his heart still beat faster when he recalled his swordplay of an hour before, and his face flushed.

"What a gesture!" he thought admiringly. " ' That for your damned Golden Mean!' Well said and well done! How it terrified the knave, i'faith! A good beginning!" He laid his notebook on the table: it was quarto size, about an inch thick, with cardboard covers and a leather spine. " 'Tis not what I'd have chosen," he reflected without sorrow, "but 'twas manfully got, and 'twill do, 'twill do. Barman!" he called. "Ink and quill, if you please!" The writing materials fetched, he opened the notebook in order to pen a dedication: to his surprise he found already inscribed on the first page B. Bragg, Printer & Stationer, Sign of the Raven, Paternoster Row, London, 1694, and on the second and third and fourth such entries as Bangle & Son, glaziers, for windowglass, 13/4, and Jno. Eastbury, msc printing, 1/3/9.

" 'Sblood! 'Tis Bragg's account book! A common ledger!" Investigating further he found that only the first quarter of the book had been used: the last entry, dated that same day, read Col. Peter Sayer, broadsides, 2/5/0. The remaining pages were untouched. "So be't," he smiled, and ripped out the used sheets. "Was't not my aim to keep strict account of my traffic with the muse?" Inking his quill, he wrote across the first page Ebenezer Cooke, Poet & Laureate of Maryland and then observed (it being a ledger of the double-entry variety) that his name fell in the Debit column and his title in the Credit.

"Nay, 'twill never do," he decided, "for to call my office an asset to me is but to call me a liability to my office." He tore out the sheet and reversed the inscription. "Yet Poet and Laureate Eben Cooke is as untrue as the other," he reflected, "for while I hope to be a credit to my post, yet surely the post is no liability to me. 'Twere fitter the thing were done sidewise down the credit line, to signify the mutual benefit of title and man." But before he tore out the second sheet it occurred to him that "credit" was meaningless except as credit to somebody — and yet anything he entered to receive it became a liability. For a moment he was frantic.

"Stay!" he commanded himself, perspiring. "The fault is not in the nature of the world, but in Bragg's categories. I'll merely paste my commission over the whole title page."

He called for glue, but when he searched his pockets for the commission from Lord Baltimore, he found it not in any of them.

"Agad! 'Tis in the coat I wore last night at Locket's, that Bertrand hath packed away for me!"

He went searching about the posthouse for his man, without success. But in the street outside, where the carriage was being made ready, he was astonished to find no other person than his sister Anna.

"Marry!" he cried, and hurried to embrace her. "People vanish and appear to me of late as in a Drury Lane comedy! How is it thou'rt in London?"

"To see thee off to Plymouth," Anna said. Her voice was no longer girlish, but had a hard, flat tone to it, and one would have put her age closer to thirty-five than twenty-eight years. "Father forbade it but would not come himself, and so I stole away and be damned to him." She stepped back and examined her brother. "Ah faith, thou'rt grown thinner, Eben! I've heard 'twere wise to fatten up for an ocean passage."

"I had but a week to fatten," Ebenezer reminded her. During his sojourn at Paggen's he had seen Anna not more than once a year, and he was greatly moved by the alteration in her appearance.

She lowered her eyes, and he blushed.

"I'm looking for that great cynical servant of mine," he said gaily, turning away. "You've not seen him, I suppose?"

"You mean Bertrand? I sent him off myself not five minutes past, when he'd got all your baggage on the coach."

"Ah, there's a pity. I had promised him a crown for't."

"And I gave it him, from Father's money. He'll be back at St. Giles, I think, for Mrs. Twigg hath a ferment of the blood and is not given long to live."

"Nay! Dear old Twigg! 'Tis a pity to lose her."

They stood about awkwardly. Turning his head to avoid looking her in the eye, Ebenezer caught sight of the wigless fellow of the bookstore, Peter Sayer, standing idly by the corner.

"Did Bertrand tell you aught of my preferment?" he asked cheerfully.

"Aye, he spoke of't. I'm proud." Anna's manner was distracted. "Eben — " She grasped his arm. "Was't true, what that letter said?"