But when she came to fill in the form, a most humiliating hitch occurred, humiliating more because she had so stupidly overlooked it than because of the shortcoming from which it derived, for the chimp was by no means an intellectual snob. She was, of course, unable to write. For a moment she was quite overcome.

“It serves me right,” she murmured. “What business have I, a mere chimp, to insinuate myself into this Elysium, and by using someone else’s ticket, too?”

Then, something of the sterner fiber asserted itself, and, remembering that the writing of many others, which was but little better than her own, not only had its birth here, but its end and its immortality also, she plucked up heart, and, “After all,” she thought, “perhaps, in my humble line, I can do as well as these, and by the same means, by careful copying.”

And this she proceeded to do, but, alas, her efforts were attended by even less success than that which usually crowns such methods, for what appeared a passable copy of the English characters to her private eye seemed to the official behind the grating to be an inscription in some Eastern alphabet, so that, conscientiously approaching the self-conscious chimp, he asked her, “How d’ye do?” first in Arabic and then in Chinese. On receiving no reply beyond that melancholy and fatalistic smirk with which one naturally disclaims understanding of an unknown tongue, he regarded Emily with great purpose, and, observing her parasol, her prognathous jaw, and a nuance of superfluous hair, he addressed her in the dialect of the hairy Ainus of Japan. At this Emily spread apart her hands, as if to cast to the idle winds a soul ignoble enough to lack understanding of so thorough a courtesy.

Perceiving the pinkness of her palms, the official then spoke to her in Persian, and, as this elicited only a further gesture of self-reproach from the embarrassed chimp, he tried her next, having noted also her dark complexion and diminutive stature, with the four cardinal dialects of the Deccan. All was in vain. For some moments the two gazed at one another, with much genuine liking and respect, across the linguistic gulf which lay between them.

Suddenly Emily conceived a plan. Taking the kind official by the sleeve, she led him to the catalogue, and, putting her finger upon the title of the book she desired, she implored him with her most bewitching smile to fill up for her the form which she proffered. Touched by the sincerity in her eye, the good man, a true friend to all attempts at learning, brushed aside the stifling bonds of red tape, and benevolently made the desired exception to the rule.

How happy was Emily at that moment! She could scarcely contain herself until the book was fetched, and when it arrived she buried herself so earnestly in its pages as to win smiles of sympathy and approval from the blasé veterans of the Reading Room, to whom, for more years than they cared to count, the first glance at the book they had ordered begot nothing but a dyspeptic desire for yet another. So smiles the jaded gourmet upon the hearty youngster whose naïve appreciation plays disproportionate havoc among the dishes of hors d’oeuvres. The officials, too, were appreciative of this single-hearted application of Emily’s. One reader at least, they felt, seemed unlikely to add, by a capricious craving for change, to the burden of their hot and swollen feet, and they too smiled upon the eager young student. So smiles the waiter on observing that same youngster settle down to a substantial steak and chips, innocent of the need for titillation which calls for all the porterage of a seven-course meal.

Emily had won the good opinion of the Reading Room, and she had not revisited that spot many times before her demure and sober graces evoked a still warmer feeling from certain of the respectable gentlemen who regularly sat in her section. She was, they unanimously decided, the Belle of the British Museum, and under that title she became the reigning toast of the tearoom, where more than one of her hirsute admirers contracted a mild tannin poisoning from drinking, with no heel taps either, to those dusky charms which had set so many hearts ablaze.

It must not be assumed from these casualties, however, that her influence was mainly of a disintegrating kind. Though one or two of the frailer spirits lost many precious moments in gazing surreptitiously at her unconscious form when they should have been deep in their work, there were others who found in her compelling charm a new stimulus to energy, and scribbled more fiercely than ever in order that they might finish the gigantic works they were compiling, and emerge before her eyes from the dull husk of the reader into the dragonfly iridescence of the famous read. And one and all were conscious of a new spirit born within them, a renascent brightness which blossomed here in a new attaché case, there in a bow tie or a little amateur topiary for a straggling beard, and, in some, in a sparkling vivacity, surprising alike to each speaker and his friends, in their teatime conversation.

“Here’s to those bright eyes!” cried one, sluicing a steep wave of tea through the curved baleen of his mustache.

“Here’s to her bewitching smile!” “To her orange ear!” “To her wee nose!” clamored others. “And here’s to the day she first came among us!” struck in a fifth.

“I remember it well,” said a converted editor of Schopenhauer. “I think it was I who saw her first. I thought, ‘Another woman!’ Yes, that’s what I thought. When I came in and saw a parasol lying on the desk beside mine: ‘Another woman!’ I thought. I always think that. There are too many . . .”

“Then I saw her before you did,” burst in a biographer. “I saw her at the doorway. She stood — a sight to make an old man young! Well, I don’t know, but the effect on a middle-aged one was startling. Perhaps you wouldn’t believe it, but my indigestion — well, you know, it was a sort of bowel indigestion before — starchy. From that day to this, believe me or not, just as you like, it changed. .