“I wish I’d known——”

He peered out of the manhole. “Look!” he said. “There’s something there!”

“Is there time?”

“We shall be an hour.”

I looked out. It was an old number of Tit-Bits that one of the men must have brought. Further away in the corner I saw a torn Lloyds’ News. I scrambled back into the sphere with these things. “What have you got?” I said.

I took the book from his hand and read, “The Works of William Shakespeare.”

He coloured slightly. “My education has been so purely scientific—” he said apologetically.

“Never read him?”

“Never.”