Page:Daskam Bacon--Whom the gods destroy.djvu/178

 The librarian sighed despairingly.

"Perhaps you don't know who I am," she explained, not crossly, but with that air of detachment and finality that many people assume in talking with children. "I am Miss Watkins, the new librarian, and when I give an order here it must be obeyed. When I tell any one to do anything, I expect them to do it, because—because they must," she concluded lamely, a little disconcerted by the placid stare of the brown eyes. "You see, if all the little boys came in here, there would be no room for us to work."

"But they don't—nobody comes but me," he reminded her.

"Suppose," she demanded, "that someone should call for that book you are reading. I shouldn't know where to look for it."

"Nobody ever wants it but me," he assured her again.

"I have no time to argue," she said irritably, "you must do as I tell you. Put the book up and run away."

Without another word he laid the book on the