I washed my hands and face, smoothed my hair down, combing it with my fingers. Going over my suit with damp toweling got off a lot of the dirt. I put my collar on the outside of my jacket and creased the wings with my thumbnail so it would look more like a sports shirt. It didn't really. I still looked like a bum, but sort of a neat, non-objectionable bum.
The librarian at the main desk looked sympathetically hostile, or hostilely sympathetic.
"I'd like to get into the stacks, miss," I said, "and see some of the old newspapers."
"Which newspapers?" the old girl asked stiffly.
I thought back. I couldn't remember the exact date. "Ones for the first week in November last year."
"We have the Times microfilmed. I would have to project them for you."
"I didn't want to see the Times," I said, fast. "Don't you have any newspapers on paper?" I didn't want her to see what I wanted to read up on.
"We have the News, bound, for last year."
I nodded. "That's the one I wanted to see."
She sniffed and told me to follow her. I didn't rate a cart to my table, I guess, or else the bound papers weren't supposed to come out of the stacks.