The Girls From Fieu Dayol
By ROBERT F. YOUNG
They were lovely and quick
to learn—and their only
faults were little ones!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1961.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Up until the moment when he first looked into Hippolyte Adolphe Taine's History of English Literature, Herbert Quidley's penchant for old books had netted him nothing in the way of romance and intrigue. Not that he was a stranger to either. Far from it. But hitherto the background for both had been bedrooms and bars, not libraries.
On page 21 of the Taine tome he happened upon a sheet of yellow copy paper folded in four. Unfolding it, he read:
asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj Cai: Sities towms copeis wotnid. Gind snoll doper nckli! Wilbe Fieu Dayol fot ig habe mot toseo knwo—te bijk weil en snoll doper—Klio, asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj asdf ;lkj
Since when, Quidley wondered, refolding the paper and putting it back in the book, had high-school typing students taken to reading Taine? Thoughtfully he replaced the book on the shelf and moved deeper into the literature section.