And I assume that's what he did, with brown bread – eggs taste so much better on brown, but perhaps to him bread was bread, or the landlady was strict in this regard, it was white or nothing, with marge.
Anyhow, that is how, I'm told, the story started, though frankly it was a little irritating that the teller left out these more trifling details; but I can only relate it as I heard it.
So, well lined with eggs, off he strode with giant steps to his job in a public building, on what I can only imagine was a bigger, more important day than usual, though eggs, I fear, would not have set him up.
Now, in this public building were shelves and shelves of books, where people wandered in, off the streets, day in, day out, to look at and, if a member, i.e., had within their wallet or their purse a card, borrow for three weeks or longer. I don't know what our lodger's exact job was, but obviously it involved books and therefore the users of the building, be they very young or very old or somewhere in-between.
Of course, as such stories go (and they rarely go anywhere else), there was a woman, who puzzled and intrigued him; for her movements, when within, it must be said, were a little odd. She hovered around the shelves, a moth forever drawn to the written word, and studying often a scrap of paper in her hand yet appeared unsure of whether it was this book she wanted or another, or indeed any at all. Some of the assistants thought she was waiting for the books to speak to her and when none did, she was dumbfounded. Other times however the knowledge, out of sight of this great public building, had been given to her, and her choices had been made, and transported, before she arrived.
This was one of those days – She had come to collect.
The lodger having seen her library number among the reserved books the day before had also divined this, and had determined that somehow he would engage her in conversation.
She, however, on arrival, did not as he had imagined immediately approach the reservation collection point and scurried off to a darker recess, a bit of paper as always clutched in her hand.
He looked at his watch – his break was soon, and regulations stipulated that he took it at the exact minute to its exact ending second. He had now lost sight of her and lost his head. She wasn't in the children's section – why would she be? She wasn't in Art or Biography. Ah, there she was! A dark-coated figure in Travel, standing prone, turning over the yellowed leaves of a paperback. He looked again at his watch... damn! And strode past with a sideways glance.
By the time he returned, her ordered book had gone!
And that was the beginning and the end, for never did they in the surroundings of books encounter each other.
Anyhow, that is how, I'm told, the story started, though frankly it was a little irritating that the teller left out these more trifling details; but I can only relate it as I heard it.
So, well lined with eggs, off he strode with giant steps to his job in a public building, on what I can only imagine was a bigger, more important day than usual, though eggs, I fear, would not have set him up.
Now, in this public building were shelves and shelves of books, where people wandered in, off the streets, day in, day out, to look at and, if a member, i.e., had within their wallet or their purse a card, borrow for three weeks or longer. I don't know what our lodger's exact job was, but obviously it involved books and therefore the users of the building, be they very young or very old or somewhere in-between.
Of course, as such stories go (and they rarely go anywhere else), there was a woman, who puzzled and intrigued him; for her movements, when within, it must be said, were a little odd. She hovered around the shelves, a moth forever drawn to the written word, and studying often a scrap of paper in her hand yet appeared unsure of whether it was this book she wanted or another, or indeed any at all. Some of the assistants thought she was waiting for the books to speak to her and when none did, she was dumbfounded. Other times however the knowledge, out of sight of this great public building, had been given to her, and her choices had been made, and transported, before she arrived.
This was one of those days – She had come to collect.
The lodger having seen her library number among the reserved books the day before had also divined this, and had determined that somehow he would engage her in conversation.
She, however, on arrival, did not as he had imagined immediately approach the reservation collection point and scurried off to a darker recess, a bit of paper as always clutched in her hand.
He looked at his watch – his break was soon, and regulations stipulated that he took it at the exact minute to its exact ending second. He had now lost sight of her and lost his head. She wasn't in the children's section – why would she be? She wasn't in Art or Biography. Ah, there she was! A dark-coated figure in Travel, standing prone, turning over the yellowed leaves of a paperback. He looked again at his watch... damn! And strode past with a sideways glance.
By the time he returned, her ordered book had gone!
And that was the beginning and the end, for never did they in the surroundings of books encounter each other.
Picture credit: Blossoming Almond in a Glass with a Book, 1888, Vincent van Gogh (source: WikiArt).
Written September 2021, with a little assistance from Robert Louis Stevenson (see The Amateur Emigrant – from The Stowaways.)
