Among College idlers in the Square rumor has it that the sign "William L. Tutin, Bookseller," marks the entrance to a den of subversive activities. "It looks mighty suspicious to me," said one passerby, referring to the three frock-coated, be-spectacled employees scurrying to and fro in a seemingly pointless fog.

Its musty shelves, however, do not harbor copies of the Communist manifesto, but a collection of second hand books selling for half price. Samuel Morrill, son of a Boston mail-order house owner, has bought Tutin's with aspirations of making it the "most interesting bookshop in Cambridge."

Literary oddities will characterize the new store, whose shelves will include works on everything from glass blowing to an autobiography of Benevenuto Cellini.

"If someone comes to us for a book on collecting tulips," said Morrill, "we want to have it for him." Among the rare books the store hopes to sell will be a first issue of a first edition of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" and countless Americana.