this answer George accordingly gave. A certain perplexity not unnaturally resulted on the lady’s part, but she listened with well-bred patience to her visitor’s further explaining himself. Then she fell to work on one of her filing cabinets. Having found what was clearly a relevant card, she glanced at it quickly, and then more at leisure and with perfect courtesy at George himself. ‘Can you tell me, Dr Naylor,’ she asked – but it was clearly information she no longer needed to seek – ‘in what year you were first admitted as a reader?’
For George this was a bad sort of question. Despite the severe scholarship to which he had been for so long habituated he was really, it must be repeated, a poor hand at dates.
‘Would it,’ he asked hopefully, ‘have been about 1940?’
The lady didn’t even elevate her eyebrows at this extraordinary suggestion, which of course implied a quite astounding precocity in her visitor. Indeed, she closed her eyes again – and for so long that George had to suppose that she really had dropped off this time. But she had merely been casting round for some tactful manner in which to proceed.
‘We work under the most vexatious necessities here,’ she presently said. ‘We have occasionally to appear quite absurd. I wonder, Dr Naylor, whether you would deprecate being asked to identify yourself?’
‘Not at all, madam! Of course not!’ George made this reply with inappropriate and disconcerting vehemence, since it was his only means of masking what he knew to be indefensible indignation. The idea of it! It was scarcely to be believed. He rummaged in pockets: several of the wrong pockets before a more hopeful one. ‘Here’s a visiting card,’ he mumbled. ‘Grubby, I’m afraid. One doesn’t much use such things nowadays, and they take on a shop-soiled look. Or one of these affairs?’ Hopefully, he held out a small plastic object. ‘A bank card, I think it’s called. It’s got my name on it. Oh! I see it has my signature too. George Naylor.’
Like the lady in Blackwell’s shop, this lady managed a kindly smile. She had unmistakably decided that she was in the presence of a harmless Fool of God. Then she produced an object of her own. It was like a ping-pong bat, and it had some rigmarole pasted on it. George remembered having seen such things in the several rooms of up-to-date stately homes and picture galleries, telling you what you were looking at on the walls. The lady handed this to George – considerately, handle first.
‘Can you solemnly assure me,’ she asked with sudden sternness, ‘that you clearly remember subscribing to this declaration when first admitted as a reader in the Bodleian?’
George stared at the ping-pong bat in a more or less mesmerised way.
‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘That is, I rather think so. I don’t know about the clarity. But I do seem dimly to remember that bit about not making fire in the place.’
‘I fear I must ask you to read it aloud to me.’
‘Solemnly?’ George repeated this word by way of attempting to suggest abundant and willing co-operation. Unfortunately it came out with the effect of a frivolous quip. He then managed, however, to read the thing aloud with a decent sobriety. He even got in what might have been called a hint of pulpit eloquence. And it appeared to satisfy the terms of this guardian spirit’s mystery. She produced a little card of her own, wrote on it, had George sign it, passed it through a copying machine, and handed it back to him with a blessed air of accomplishment and finality.
‘Thank you very much,’ George said. ‘Do I have to show it if I go into the Camera too? The Radcliffe Camera, one of Oxford’s scattering of really splendid buildings, is a kind of free-standing annexe of the Bodleian Library.
‘Certainly,’ the lady said. ‘They won’t let you into the Camera without it. It would be a serious breach of security.’ She stood up, shook hands with George, sat down
For George this was a bad sort of question. Despite the severe scholarship to which he had been for so long habituated he was really, it must be repeated, a poor hand at dates.
‘Would it,’ he asked hopefully, ‘have been about 1940?’
The lady didn’t even elevate her eyebrows at this extraordinary suggestion, which of course implied a quite astounding precocity in her visitor. Indeed, she closed her eyes again – and for so long that George had to suppose that she really had dropped off this time. But she had merely been casting round for some tactful manner in which to proceed.
‘We work under the most vexatious necessities here,’ she presently said. ‘We have occasionally to appear quite absurd. I wonder, Dr Naylor, whether you would deprecate being asked to identify yourself?’
‘Not at all, madam! Of course not!’ George made this reply with inappropriate and disconcerting vehemence, since it was his only means of masking what he knew to be indefensible indignation. The idea of it! It was scarcely to be believed. He rummaged in pockets: several of the wrong pockets before a more hopeful one. ‘Here’s a visiting card,’ he mumbled. ‘Grubby, I’m afraid. One doesn’t much use such things nowadays, and they take on a shop-soiled look. Or one of these affairs?’ Hopefully, he held out a small plastic object. ‘A bank card, I think it’s called. It’s got my name on it. Oh! I see it has my signature too. George Naylor.’
Like the lady in Blackwell’s shop, this lady managed a kindly smile. She had unmistakably decided that she was in the presence of a harmless Fool of God. Then she produced an object of her own. It was like a ping-pong bat, and it had some rigmarole pasted on it. George remembered having seen such things in the several rooms of up-to-date stately homes and picture galleries, telling you what you were looking at on the walls. The lady handed this to George – considerately, handle first.
‘Can you solemnly assure me,’ she asked with sudden sternness, ‘that you clearly remember subscribing to this declaration when first admitted as a reader in the Bodleian?’
George stared at the ping-pong bat in a more or less mesmerised way.
‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘That is, I rather think so. I don’t know about the clarity. But I do seem dimly to remember that bit about not making fire in the place.’
‘I fear I must ask you to read it aloud to me.’
‘Solemnly?’ George repeated this word by way of attempting to suggest abundant and willing co-operation. Unfortunately it came out with the effect of a frivolous quip. He then managed, however, to read the thing aloud with a decent sobriety. He even got in what might have been called a hint of pulpit eloquence. And it appeared to satisfy the terms of this guardian spirit’s mystery. She produced a little card of her own, wrote on it, had George sign it, passed it through a copying machine, and handed it back to him with a blessed air of accomplishment and finality.
‘Thank you very much,’ George said. ‘Do I have to show it if I go into the Camera too? The Radcliffe Camera, one of Oxford’s scattering of really splendid buildings, is a kind of free-standing annexe of the Bodleian Library.
‘Certainly,’ the lady said. ‘They won’t let you into the Camera without it. It would be a serious breach of security.’ She stood up, shook hands with George, sat down
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