The personage: "You can search me!"
Miss V.: "Why, I can't give you a book unless you have a card,—haven't you ever borrowed books from the library?"
The personage: "Never in my life." (Suddenly exploding.) "Great Scott! I never saw so much red tape in my life."
Miss V.: "Well, here—"
(And she breaks a library rule herself, by getting the name and address of the personage, and giving him the book, charged on her own card. But she gets rid of him at last.)
A man, with a confidential manner (leaning over the desk, and whispering): "Say, lady, I want to get a book."
Miss V.: "What book do you want?"
The confidential man (pursing up his lips, and nodding his head, as if to tip her the wink): "Why,—er, why,—that same one, yer know!"
(Miss V. looks at him carefully, but as she cannot distinguish him amongst the forty thousand persons who have entered the library during the past year, she is forced to make further inquiries.)
Miss V.: "Which same one? I don't remember—"