The Complete Five Towns Collections. Bennett Arnold

      Chapter IX

       Table of Contents

      In the centre of the reading-room at the British Museum sit four men fenced about by a quadruple ring of unwieldy volumes which are an index to all the knowledge in the world. The four men know those volumes as a good courier knows the Continental Bradshaw, and all day long, from early morning, when the attendants, self-propelled on wheeled stools, run around the rings arranging and aligning the huge blue tomes, to late afternoon, when the immense dome is like a dark night and the arc lamps hiss and crackle in the silence, they answer questions, patiently, courteously; they are seldom embarrassed and less seldom in the wrong.

      Radiating in long rows from the central fortress of learning, a diversified company of readers disposes itself: bishops, statesmen, men of science, historians, needy pedants, popular authors whose broughams are waiting in the precincts, journalists, medical students, law students, curates, hack-writers, women with clipped hair and black aprons, idlers; all short-sighted and all silent.

      Every few minutes an official enters in charge of an awed group of country visitors, and whispers mechanically the unchanging formula: "Eighty thousand volumes in this room alone: thirty-six miles of bookshelves in the Museum altogether." Whereupon the visitors stare about them, the official unsuccessfully endeavours not to let it appear that the credit of the business belongs entirely to himself, and the party retires again.

      Vague, reverberating noises roll heavily from time to time across the chamber, but no one looks up; the incessant cannibal feast of the living upon the dead goes speechlessly forward; the trucks of food are always moving to and fro, and the nonchalant waiters seem to take no rest.

      Almost Richard's first care on coming to London had been to obtain a reader's ticket for the British Museum, and for several months he had made a practice of spending Saturday afternoon there, following no special line of study or research, and chiefly contenting himself with desultory reading in the twenty thousand volumes which could be reached down without the slow machinery of an order form. After a time the charm of the place had dwindled, and other occupations filled his Saturday afternoons.

      But when upon his return from William's funeral he stepped from Euston Station into Bloomsbury, the old enthusiasms came back in all their original freshness. The seduction of the street vistas, the lofty buildings, and the swiftly flitting hansoms once more made mere wayfaring a delight; the old feeling of self-confident power lifted his chin, and the failures of the past were forgotten in a dream of future possibilities. He dwelt with pleasure on that part of his conversation with Mrs. Clayton Vernon which disclosed the interesting fact that Bursley would be hurt if he failed to do "things." Bursley, and especially Mrs. Clayton Vernon, good woman, should not be disappointed. He had towards his native town the sentiments of a consciously clever husband who divines an admiring trust in the glance of a little ignoramus of a wife. Such faith was indeed touching.

      One of the numerous resolutions which he made was to resume attendance at the British Museum; the first visit was anticipated with impatience, and when he found himself once more within the book-lined walls of the reading-room he was annoyed to discover that his plans for study were not matured sufficiently to enable him to realise any definite part of them, however small, that day. An idea for an article on "White Elephants" was nebulous in his brain; he felt sure that the subject might be treated in a fascinating manner, if only he could put hands on the right material. An hour passed in searching Poole's Index and other works of reference, without result, and Richard spent the remainder of the afternoon in evolving from old magazines schemes for articles which would present fewer difficulties in working out. Nothing of value was accomplished, and yet he experienced neither disappointment nor a sense of failure. Contact with innumerable books of respectable but forbidding appearance had cajoled him, as frequently before, into the delusion that he had been industrious; surely it was impossible that a man could remain long in that atmosphere of scholarly attainment without acquiring knowledge and improving his mind!

      Presently he abandoned the concoction of attractive titles for his articles, and began to look through some volumes of the "Biographie Universelle." The room was thinning now. He glanced at the clock; it was turned six. He had been there nearly four hours! With a sigh of satisfaction he replaced all his books and turned to go, mentally discussing whether or not so much application did not entitle him, in spite of certain resolutions, to go to the Ottoman that evening.

      "Hey!" a voice called out as he passed the glass screen near the door; it sang resonantly among the desks and ascended into the dome; a number of readers looked up. Richard turned round sharply, and beheld Mr. Aked moving a forefinger on the other side of the screen.

      "Been here long?" the older man asked, when Richard had come round to him. "I've been here all day—first time for fifteen years at least. Strange we didn't see each other. They've got a beastly new regulation about novels less than five years old not being available. I particularly wanted some of Gissing's—not for the mere fun of reading 'em of course, because I've read 'em before. I wanted them for a special purpose—I may tell you about it some day—and I couldn't get them, at least several of them. What a tremendous crowd there is here nowadays!"

      "Well, you see, it's Saturday afternoon," Richard put in, "and Saturday afternoon's the only time that most people can come, unless they're men of independent means like yourself. You seem to have got a few novels besides Gissing's, though." About forty volumes were stacked upon Mr. Aked's desk, many of them open.

      "Yes, but I've done now." He began to close the books with a smack and to pitch them down roughly in new heaps, exactly like a petulant boy handling school-books. "See, pile them between my arms, and I bet you I'll carry them away all at once."

      "Oh, no. I'll help you," Richard laughed. "It'll be far less trouble than picking up what you drop."

      While they were waiting at the centre desk Mr. Aked said,—

      "There's something about this place that makes you ask for more volumes than can possibly be useful to you. I question whether I've done any good here to-day at all. If I'd been content with three or four books instead of thirty or forty, I might have done something. By the way, what are you here for?"

      "Well, I just came to look up a few points," Richard answered vaguely. "I've been messing about—got a notion or two for articles, that's all."

      Mr. Aked stopped to shake hands as soon as they were outside the Museum. Richard was very disappointed that their meeting should have been so short. This man of strange vivacity had thrown a spell over him. Richard was sure that his conversation, if only he could be persuaded to talk, would prove delightfully original and suggestive; he guessed that they were mutually sympathetic. Ever since their encounter in the A. B. C. shop Richard had desired to know more of him, and now, when by chance they met again, Mr. Aked's manner showed little or no inclination towards a closer acquaintance. There was of course a difference between them in age of at least thirty years, but to Richard that seemed no bar to an intimacy. It was, he surmised, only the physical part of Mr. Aked that had grown old.

      "Well, good-bye."

      "Good-bye." Should he ask if he might call at Mr. Aked's rooms or house, or whatever his abode was? He hesitated, from nervousness.

      "Often come here?"

      "Generally on Saturdays," said Richard.

      "We may see each other again, then, sometime. Good-bye."

      Richard left him rather sadly, and the sound of the old man's quick,