Satisfied that the whole affair was now explained, she drank her tea and took a hearty bite of cake.
“I have studied the Byzantine Empire in a modest way pretty thoroughly,” said Mr. Carton, “but have never yet felt quite sure how people felt. Could you explain the sensation at all, Mrs. Updike?”
“Well, you know the London Library,” said Mrs. Updike, resuming her earnest air and voice.
Mr. Carton said he did, and the number of new members who were foreigners and got in without an entrance fee and wore the staff out by asking questions and expecting to have their work done for them was a menace, besides forgetting to enter books and to return them. Also, he said angrily, the number of people in the Reading Room who apparently came there entirely to read tendentious weeklies. Thank God, h
