“Are you following a programme of reading?”
“Yes.”
“May I see it? That may give me a clue.”
“I haven’t a copy here.”
“Can you give me the name of the person or committee who made it?”
“Oh, I made it myself.”
This was a “facer”; the librarian seemed to have brought up against a stone wall, but she waited, knowing that a situation, unlike a knot, will sometimes untie itself.
The seeker after knowledge also waited for a time. Then she broke out animatedly:
“Why, I just wanted American travels, don’t you know? Funny little stories and things about the sort of Americans that go abroad with a bird-cage!”
Just what books were given to her I do not know; but in due time her interesting paper before the Olla Podrida Club was properly noticed in the local papers.