Traveller in An Antique Land

...gave an amusing account of visiting Blackwell's shop with Hugo Dyson. When he came to the point at which the assistant returned to Hugo and said: Sorry, sir, we have no second-hand copy, but we have a new copy (and H. replied, Well, rub it on the floor and make it secondhand: it's all the same to me), there was loud applause.

-- J.R.R. Tolkien, excerpt from a letter to his son Michael

posted by Jennifer @ 12:40 AM