“There is more than that in it, I fancy: he was misled by a printer's blunder, I suspect. Some months ago I found the passage which Tennyson seems to follow, in a cheap reprint of sir Thomas Malory's History of King Arthur--then just out, and could not make sense of it. Yesterday I found here this long little book, evidently the edition from which the other was printed--and printed correctly too. In both issues, this is what the knight is made to say: “'Then sir Bedivere departed, and went to the sword, and lightly took it up and went to the water's side, and there he bound the girdle about the belts. And then he threw the sword into the water as far as he might.'” “Well,” said Barbara, “you have not made me any wiser! You said the new one was printed correctly from that old one!” “But I did not say the old one, as you call it, was itself printed correctly from the much older one! Look here now,” continued Richard--and mounting the library-steps, he took down another small volume, very like the former, “--here is another edition, of nearly the same date: let me read what is printed there:-- “'Then sir Bedivere departed, and went to the sword, and lightly took it up, and went to the water side, and there he bound the girdle about the hilt. And then he threw the sword into the water as far as he might.' “Now, most likely the copy from which both of these editions were printed, had the word _hilts_, for then they always spoke of the _hilts_, not _hilt_ of a sword; and the one printer modernized it into _hilt_, and the other, perhaps mistaking the dim print, for _hilts_ printed _belts_. To tie the girdle about the _belts_ must simply be nonsense. But to tie the girdle to the hilts of the sword, would just give the knight what you said he would want--something long to swing it round his head with, and throw it like a stone, and the sling with it.” “I understand.” “You see then how the printer's blunder, which might not appear to matter much, has come to matter a great deal, for it has, it seems to me, caused a fault-spot in the loveliest poem!” During this conversation Richard's work had scarcely relaxed; but now that a pause came it seemed to gather diligence. “Why do you spend your time patching up books?” said Barbara. “Because they are worth patching up; and because I earn my bread by patching them.” “But you seem to care most for what is inside them!” “If I did not, I should never have taken to mending, I should have been content with binding them. New covers make more show, and are much easier put on than patches.” Another pause followed. “What a lot you know!” said Barbara. “Very little,” answered Richard. “Then where am I!” she returned. “Perhaps ladies don't need books! I don't know about ladies.” “I think they don't care about them. I never hear them talk as you do--as if books were their friends. But why should they? Books are only books!” “You would not say that if once you knew them!”