Now all this was changed. As we sat with our chairs creaking together and she whispered the story of those stirring times into my receptive ear--talking is strictly forbidden in the reading-room--the disjointed fragments arranged themselves into a romance of supreme fascination. Egyptian, Babylonian, Aramaean, Hittite, Memphis, Babylon, Hamath, Megiddo--I swallowed them all thankfully, wrote them down and asked for more. Only once did I disgrace myself. An elderly clergyman of ascetic and acidulous aspect had passed us with a glance of evident disapproval, clearly setting us down as intruding philanderers; and when I contrasted the parson's probable conception of the whispered communications that were being poured into my ear so tenderly and confidentially with the dry reality, I chuckled aloud. But my fair task-mistress only paused, with her finger on the page, smilingly to rebuke me, and then went on with the dictation. She was certainly a Tartar for work.
It was a proud moment for me when, in response to my interrogative "Yes?" my companion said "That is all" and closed the book. We had extracted the pith and marrow of six considerable volumes in two hours and a half.
"You have been better than your word," she said. "It would have taken me two full days of really hard work to make the notes that you have written down since we commenced. I don't know how to thank you."
"There's no need to. I've enjoyed myself and polished up my shorthand. What is the next thing? We shall want some books for to-morrow, shan't we?"
"Yes. I have made out a list, so if you will come with me to the catalogue desk I will look out the numbers and ask you to write the tickets."
The selection of a fresh batch of authorities occupied us for another quarter of an hour, and then, having handed in the volumes that we had squeezed dry, we took our way out of the reading-room.
"Which way shall we go?" she asked as we passed out of the gate, where stood a massive policeman, like the guardian angel at the gate of Paradise (only, thank Heaven! he bore no flaming sword forbidding reentry).
"We are going," I replied, "to Museum Street, where is a milkshop in which one can get an excellent cup of tea."
She looked as if she would have demurred, but eventually followed obediently, and we were soon seated side by side at a little marble-topped table, retracing the ground that we had covered in the afternoon's work and discussing various points of interest over a joint teapot.
"Have you been doing this sort of work long?" I asked as she handed me my second cup of tea.