“Gee whiz, Croftsy must be some reader,” said Lib. “I was never here before, and I’ve got a brainstorm already.”
I smiled, wryly, no doubt. “I believe that the library, like the portraits and the symbol of the cat and the legends of Aidenn Forest, came to Crofts with the building. In fact, though I haven’t looked these over, I imagine many of them are of a sort unlikely to interest our host.”
Indeed, the major portion of the collection were volumes which could stir the interest only of the antiquarian and the erudite student of literature. Few, I am sure, bore the twentieth-century imprint. Included were old books of all assortments of inconvenient sizes from folio to duodecimo, and although in their glass prisons, whence no doubt they were taken and dusted quarterly, they looked spick and span, still they had a lonesome air, as if longing to be handled for love.
I mused. “Now where shall we look for one particular volume in all this?”
“Are you putting that as a question, Marshal?” asked Lib. “That’s not fair. I’m in the enemy’s country here; don’t know the landmarks.”
“We might look over the ones of reasonable size first. The thing’s a reprint. Early English Text, I dare say.”
“I don’t get you, Admiral, but am game to follow you in a leaky boat to the death. I gathered that this Flood has an alias.”
“Er—”
“Doesn’t go under its own name, I mean.”
“That is correct.”