Old Gilodi had made up his mind that I was to become a bookseller like himself, and the day when he took me to see Voynich is a landmark in my life.

[...]

As to Voynich — he was a Polish Jew, a bent kind of creature and getting on for sixty. I liked his shop in Shaftesbury Avenue; it was full of books and well kept, and Voynich himself was most obliging to me. He gave me one of his excellent catalogues to study, begging me to note the prices: “Always keep the price as high as possible, if you ever have a book to sell,” he added. Then in a squeaky voice and in an accent which I even then recognized as not being English he told me that he had bought a bookshop in Florence called the “Libreria Franceschini.”

“I know that shop,” I said.

“Well, it is full of incunabula. Absolutely crammed with incunabula.”

“Surely a bookshop ought to be full of books?”

He laughed heartily at my ignorance, explained what incunabula were, and went on in his enthusiastic fashion:

“Millions of books, shelves and shelves of the greatest rarities in the world. What I have discovered in Italy is altogether unbelievable! Just listen to this. I once went to a convent and the monks showed me their library. It was a mine of early printed books and codexes and illuminated manuscripts. I nearly fainted — I assure you I nearly fainted on the spot. But I managed to keep my head all the same, and told the monks they could have a most interesting and valuable collection of modern theological works to replace that dusty rubbish. I succeeded in persuading the Father Superior, and in a month that whole library was in my hands, and I sent them a cartload of modern trash in exchange. Now take my advice: drop your present job and become a bookseller.”

“Adventures Of A Bookseller” by G. Orioli
(Robert M. McBride & Co., New York, 1938, Chapter 5, pp.76-77; made in Great Britain by R. & R. Clark, Ltd., Endinburgh)