The Story of Marvin; Or, On heavy reading; Or, When you're buying, you're buying, selling, selling, never confuse the two.

I have always loved books. But at one point, I was curious as to the BUSINESS of books. I knew little about the art of buying, so I asked my friend, Marvin, a liquidation specialist, to keep his eye out for an opportunity for me to learn something about and possibly purchase a book inventory.

On July 31st, it was one of the hottest days of the year, with temps well over 100 degrees. Marvin called. He said he had an opportunity I might be interested in and to meet him at the warehouse of a notable publisher downtown at 4:00PM sharp." O.K.", I said.

As I entered the warehouse, I noted that the temp inside was about 130 deg. and quickly discarded my suitcoat and tie. When I met Marvin, he said, "Just listen, and let me do the talking."

We met the warehouse manager and in his cramped office the temperature seemed to get even worse. He explained he had some "remainders" of computer books and gave us a list of titles and numbers. They totaled almost 20,000. When I saw the numbers, I thought that Marvin was nuts. No way did I have enough to purchase all these. But I remembered his words. I remained silent.

The meeting dragged on forever. Marvin had questions, and questions and questions. Finally, the warehouse staff came in and punched out and left. It was after 6PM. Frustrated, the manager said, "Well, Marvin, I need to do something with all these books. My lease expires on Sunday, and I really need to do something."

Then Marvin spoke. " I am pleased that Dick and I can be of help in this matter. We will see that all these books are removed at no charge to you by Monday morning. The Manager was stunned, but quickly agreed.

When we were outside the building, Marvin took me aside and said, " When you are buying, you are buying; When you are selling, you are selling; Never confuse the two. When you buy, you begin at zero. Now go and rent a truck. We have our work cut out for us. "