The Great When in the Bookshop

The Great When by Alan Moore

"'Mm. Very attractive. Lovely olive-green cough cough cloth boards, you'll notice. Cassell first edition, that is, 1919, and at seven shillings very reasonably cough cough cough cough priced.

'Ha ha. No, I was looking more at where it's rubbed, and how the spine's cracked. What d'you say we call it five bob?'

Still without a flicker of expression in her lithic features, Ada held the man's gaze for a moment, then looked down at the scuffed volume in her hand, as if uncomprehending. Finally, she tilted back her petrified coiffure and once again stared into his increasingly uncertain eyes.

'Oh. Cough cough cough. You want to haggle.'"

That was it for Dennis. Uttering a hasty, 'Right, I'm off, then. See you later, he made for the exit past the brace of other customers, who both stood rooted to the spot as they watched the unfolding ugly situation at the counter..."

- Alan Moore, The Great When (Coffin Ada, bookseller)