Finally, at a moment selected by herself, the vigilant Ada Weeks would terminate the proceedings with the curt announcement that her grandfather was tired. The precious volumes were locked in the library again, and we were bidden, without ceremony, to say good-night to our host and not to bang the street door. Both of which commands we obeyed promptly and reverently, and departed homeward.
IV
Possibly it may have occurred to the reader to wonder whether in a community at once so erudite and progressive as Broxborough—it possesses both a Cathedral Close and a Linoleum Factory, you will remember—there can have been no official alter native to Twenty-One, The Common—no Public Library, no Public Lecture Courses, no Municipal Oracle, as it were.
In truth Broxborough once had all these things. Before the War there existed an institution known as Broxborough Pantheon. Here was an excellent library of reference; lectures and classes, too, were constantly in operation throughout the winter months. In its lighter moments the Pantheon lent itself to whist drives. But the entire building had been destroyed by fire in Nineteen Fifteen, and had never been rebuilt, for the good and sufficient reason that during those days there were other things to do. After the Armistice money was scarce and rates were high. Moreover, that shrinking sensitive-plant, the British bricklayer, had been instructed by his Union to limit his professional activities to a tale of bricks so tenuous that his labours for the day were completed, without undue strain, by the time that he knocked off for breakfast. The months passed; such constructive energy as the district could compass was devoted to Government housing schemes, and still the Pantheon lay in ruins.
But one day a man from Pittsburgh, who had been born in Broxborough nearly forty years previously, and had relinquished his domicile and civil status therein by becoming an American citizen at the age of three, returned, rugged, prosperous, and beneficently sentimental, to revisit the haunts of his youth, and refresh his somewhat imperfect memories of his birthplace.
Naturally he found the place profoundly changed. The Cathedral organ-bellows were now inflated by a gas-engine, and the nine-Seventeen up-train did not start until nine-forty-two. And—where the Broxborough Pantheon had once reared its stucco pseudo-Doric façade upon the market-square, there was nothing but an untidy hoarding masking a heap of charred débris, and labelled, “Site of proposed new premises of the Broxborough Pantheon.” The label appeared to have been there for some years.
John Crake of Pittsburgh made inquiries, and the truth was revealed. The old Pantheon had ceased to exist for nearly five years, and the new Pantheon, in the present condition of the rate-payers' pockets, seemed unlikely ever to exist at all. So John Crake, having pondered the matter in his large and sentimental heart, put his hand into his own capacious pocket, and lo! the new Pantheon arose. The plasterers had wreaked their will upon the donor's bank account, and were making sullen way for the plumbers and electricians, about the time when I first encountered Mr. Baxter outside the second-hand bookshop.
And now the building was ready for occupation, and the exact procedure at the opening ceremony was becoming a matter of acute recrimination at the Council meetings. So that genial gossip the Rector informed me, as we encountered one another one afternoon on our professional rounds.
“Things are more or less arranged,” he said, “so far as our city fathers are capable of arranging anything. The place is to be called Crake Hall, which I think is right, and Crake himself is coming over from America for the opening, which I call sporting of him. Old Broxey” (The Most Noble the Marquis of Broxborough, the Lord Lieutenant of our County) “will perform the opening ceremony. That is to say, he will advance up the steps in the presence of the multitude and knock three times upon the closed doors of the Hall. A Solemn pause will follow, to work up the excitement. Then the donor, who will be standing inside, wearing a top-hat for the first time in his life—”
“Rector, I have frequently warned you that your ribald tongue will some day lose you your job.”
“Never mind that. It’s a poor heart that never rejoices, and I am too fat to be serious all the time, anyhow. Well, after the appointed interval of silence Crake will open a kind of peep-hole in the oaken door, and say: “Who goes there?’ or something of that kind. Broxey, if he is still awake, will reply: ‘The Citizens of this Ancient Borough,” or words to that effect. Then the doors will be thrown open—assuming that they will open; but you know what our local contractors are—and Crake will be revealed in his top-hat, and will say: “Welcome, Stranger!” or, “Walk right in, boys!” or, ‘Watch your step!’ or something like that, and will hand the key of the Institute to Broxey, who will probably lose it.”
“I see. And then to lunch at the Town Hall, I suppose?”
“Not so fast. Remember this is a Cathedral city: the Dean and Chapter must be given an opportunity to put their oar in. The Dean will speak his piece, and then I understand that the Choir, who are to be concealed somewhere behind one of the doors, will create a brief disturbance. After that the Town will assert itself, as against the County and the Close.”
“What is their stunt going to be?”
“An Address of Welcome and Grateful Thanks to Crake.”
“That seems reasonable. But who is going to compose it?”
“I have already done so, by request. It is not half bad,” said the Rector modestly.
“Who is going to read it? The Mayor?”
“The Mayor is an imperfect creature, but he possesses one superlative quality: he harbours no illusions about his own ability to grapple with the letter H. He declines to read the Address. Most of the Corporation are in the same boat—though they don’t all admit it.”
“Why don't you read it yourself?”
“Trades-Union rules forbid. If I read it, it would be regarded as the propaganda of the Established Church. The forces of Town and Chapel would combine to fall upon me and crush me. No, we must have a citizen—a citizen of credit and renown, locally known and esteemed.” The Rector eyed me furtively. “I suppose you, now—”
“Not on your life!” I replied hastily.
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing I am a comparative stranger: I have n’t been here two years yet. Besides, in opening a literary and intellectual emporium of this kind you want—I have it! The very man!”
“Who?” asked the Rector, eagerly.
I told him.
The Rector halted in the middle of the street and shook me by the hand.
“Ideal!” he said. “I’ll fix it with the Council. You go and ask him.”
V
I repaired to the Home of The Oracle that same evening. It was destined to be a memorable visit. Something unusual in the atmosphere impressed itself on my senses the moment Ada Weeks opened the door to me. Miss Weeks's manner could never at any time be described as genial: at its very best it was suggestive of an indulgent sergeant-major. But this evening Ada resembled a small, lean cat, engaged in a rear-guard action with dogs. Her green eyes blazed: one felt that she would like to arch her back and spit.
“Pettigrew and Mould is here,” she said. “Hang up your own hat: I can't leave them.” And she vanished into