Then, for the librarian who cannot laugh, like the one who reads, is supposed in library circles to be lost, Phyllis shook herself and laughed at herself a little, bravely. Then she collected the most uproarious of her flock around her and began telling them stories out of the "Merry Adventures of Robin Hood." It would keep the children quiet, and her thoughts, too. She put rose-gardens, not to say manicurists and husbands, severely out of her head. But you can't play fast and loose with the Destinies that way. "Done!" they had replied quietly to her last schedule of requirements. "We'll send our messenger over right away." It was not their fault that the Liberry Teacher could not hear them. II He was gray-haired, pink-cheeked, curvingly side-whiskered and immaculately gray-clad; and he did not look in the least like a messenger of Fate. The Liberry Teacher was at a highly keyed part of her narrative, and even the most fidgety children were tense and open-mouthed. "'And where art thou now?' cried the Stranger to Robin Hood. And Robin roared with laughter. 'Oh, in the flood, and floating down the stream with all the little fishes,' said he--" she was relating breathlessly. "_Tea_-cher!" hissed Isaac Rabinowitz, snapping his fingers at her at this exciting point. "Teacher! There's a guy wants to speak to you!" "Aw, shut-_tup_!" chorused his indignant little schoolmates. "Can't you see that Teacher's tellin' a story? Go chase yerself! Go do a tango roun' de block!" Isaac, a small Polish Jew with tragic, dark eyes and one suspender, received these and several more such suggestions with all the calm impenetrability of his race. "Here's de guy," was all he vouchsafed before he went back to the unsocial nook where, afternoon by faithful afternoon, he read away at a fat three-volume life of Alexander Hamilton. The Liberry Teacher looked up without stopping her story, and smiled a familiar greeting to the elderly gentleman, who was waiting a little uncertainly at the Children's Room door, and had obviously been looking for her in vain. He smiled and nodded in return. "Just a minute, please, Mr. De Guenther," said the Liberry Teacher cheerfully. The elderly gentleman nodded again, crossed to Isaac and his ponderous volumes, and began to talk to him with that benign lack of haste which usually means a very competent personality. Phyllis hurried somewhat with Robin Hood among his little fishes, and felt happier. It was always, in her eventless life, something of a pleasant adventure to have Mr. De Guenther or his wife drop in to see her. There was usually something pleasant at the end of it.