"Well, you see, it's Saturday afternoon," Richard put in, "and Saturday afternoon's the only time that most people can come, unless they're men of independent means like yourself. You seem to have got a few novels besides Gissing's, though." About forty volumes were stacked upon Mr. Aked's desk, many of them open.
"Yes, but I've done now." He began to close the books with a smack and to pitch them down roughly in new heaps, exactly like a petulant boy handling school-books. "See, pile them between my arms, and I bet you I'll carry them away all at once."
"Oh, no. I'll help you," Richard laughed. "It'll be far less trouble than picking up what you drop."
While they were waiting at the centre desk Mr. Aked said,--
"There's something about this place that makes you ask for more volumes than can possibly be useful to you. I question whether I've done any good here to-day at all. If I'd been content with three or four books instead of thirty or forty, I might have done something. By the way, what are you here for?"
"Well, I just came to look up a few points," Richard answered vaguely. "I've been messing about--got a notion or two for articles, that's all."
Mr. Aked stopped to shake hands as soon as they were outside the Museum. Richard was very disappointed that their meeting should have been so short. This man of strange vivacity had thrown a spell over him. Richard was sure that his conversation, if only he could be persuaded to talk, would prove delightfully original and suggestive; he guessed that they were mutually sympathetic. Ever since their encounter in the A. B. C. shop Richard had desired to know more of him, and now, when by chance they met again, Mr. Aked's manner showed little or no inclination towards a closer acquaintance. There was of course a difference between them in age of at least thirty years, but to Richard that seemed no bar to an intimacy. It was, he surmised, only the physical part of Mr. Aked that had grown old.
"Good-bye." Should he ask if he might call at Mr. Aked's rooms or house, or whatever his abode was? He hesitated, from nervousness.
"We may see each other again, then, sometime. Good-bye."
Richard left him rather sadly, and the sound of the old man's quick, alert footsteps--he almost stamped--receded in the direction of Southampton Row. A minute later, as Richard was turning round by Mudie's out of Museum Street, a hand touched his shoulder. It was Mr. Aked's.