Riceyman Steps · Chapter
The Customer explained
A dapper, well-dressed customer enters Henry Earlforward's bookshop in Riceyman Steps, seeking a Shakespeare edition.
What happens
A dapper, well-dressed customer enters Henry Earlforward's bookshop in Riceyman Steps, seeking a Shakespeare edition. Henry shows him various options and eventually sells him a Globe edition for three-and-six. The customer reveals himself as Dr. Raste, who inquires about Elsie, the young charwoman employed by Henry, explaining that a shell-shocked lad in his service is romantically interested in her. Henry, though inwardly agitated, gives a terse, noncommittal response.
Themes in this chapter
Urban Decay and Industrial London
The shop is set in Riceyman Steps, a neighborhood of outworn shabbiness, grime, and decay, with public-houses as familiar landmarks and a population that reads little beyond sporting news and sensational crime.
The Past and Memory
The shop's picturesque air and the ancient name 'Riceyman' evoke a love of the past, appealing to collectors and those with a passion for history.
Characters to notice
- Henry Earlforward
The bookseller, proud of the Riceyman name, serves a customer with quiet courtesy but is inwardly startled and alarmed by the customer's personal inquiry about Elsie.
- Dr. Raste
A short, dapper, carefully dressed man who has acquired manners above his original station. He buys a Shakespeare and then inquires about Elsie, revealing his concern for a shell-shocked lad in his service.
- Elsie
The young charwoman employed by Henry; Dr. Raste asks about her character because a shell-shocked lad is running after her.
Key passages
“The side window was bound to attract the attention of collectors and bibliomaniacs. It seemed strangely, even fatally, out of place in that dingy and sordid neighbourhood where existence was a dangerous and difficult adventure in almost frantic quest of food, drink and shelter”
The window display of fine old books seemed incongruous in a poor, struggling neighborhood where people were mainly focused on survival.
Highlights the contrast between high culture and urban decay.
“The bookseller, like many shopkeepers a fairly sure judge of people, perceived instantly that the customer must have acquired deportment from somewhere after adolescence, together with the art of dressing. There was abruptness in his voice, and the fact was that he had learnt manners above his original station in a strange place—Palestine, under Allenby.”
Henry quickly sized up the customer as someone who had learned refined manners and dress later in life, likely during military service in Palestine.
Reveals Henry's perceptiveness and the customer's background.
“I think you employ here a young charwoman, don’t you? ... Her name’s Elsie, I think. I don’t know her surname.”
Dr. Raste asks if Henry employs a young cleaning woman named Elsie.
Introduces the personal inquiry that unsettles Henry.