"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."