He would not give up. Pottles are made of stern stuff. Reason told him his cause was hopeless, but his heart told him to fight to the last. He obeyed his heart.
Arraying himself in his finest, three nights later he went to call on Mrs. Gallup, a five-pound box of Choc-O-late Nutties hugged nervously to his silk-shirted bosom.
A maid admitted him. He heard in the living room a familiar high masculine voice that made his fists double up. It was saying, "Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, was born at Stagira in 384 B. C. and——"
Mr. Deeley paused to greet Mr. Pottle casually; Mrs. Gallup took the candy with only conventional words of appreciation, and turned at once to listen, disciple-like, to the discourses of the sage from Xenia, who for the rest of the evening held the center of the stage, absorbed every beam of the calcium, and dispensed fact and fancy about a wide variety of things. He was a man with many and curious specialties. Mrs. Gallup was a willing, Mr. Pottle a most unwilling listener.
At eleven Mr. Pottle went home, having uttered but two words all evening, and those monosyllables. He left Mr. Deeley holding forth in detail on the science of astronomy, with side glances at astrology and ancestor-worship.
Mr. Pottle's heart was too full for sleep. Indeed, as he walked in the moonlight through Eastman Park, it was with the partially formed intent of flinging himself in among the swans that slept on the artificial lake.
His mind went back to the conversation of Mr. Deeley in Mrs. Gallup's salon. She had been Blossom to him once, but now—this loudly learned stranger! Mr. Pottle stopped suddenly and sat down sharply on a park bench. The topics on which Mr. Deeley had conversed so fluently passed in an orderly array before his mind: Apes, acoustics, angels, Apollo, adders, albumen, auks, Alexander the Great, anarchy, adenoids——He had it! A light, bright as the sun at noon, dawned on Mr. Pottle.
Next morning when the public library opened, Mr. Pottle was waiting at the door.
A feverish week rushed by in Mr. Pottle's life.
"We'll be having to charge that little man with the bashful grin, rent or storage or something," said Miss Merk, the seventh assistant librarian, to Miss Heaslip, the ninth assistant librarian.