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 round unheeding. He did not even look up when the elder made more unintelligible sounds to him.

Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays were the library nights. When you had crossed the iron foot-bridge over the railway, you came to a big wooden building with a corrugated iron roof, standing forlorn at an unmade corner, like the fag-end of the village. But the village was an agglomeration of fag ends. This building might have been a temporary chapel, as you came at it from the back. But in front it was labelled "Pictoria," so it was the cinema. But there was also a black board with gilt letters, like a chapel notice-board, which said "School of Arts Library." And the Pictoria had a sort of little wing, all wood, like a little school-room. And in one section of this wing was the School of Arts Library, which the Somers had joined. Four rows of novels: the top now a hundred or more thin books, all Nat Gould or Zane Grey. The young women came for Zane Grey. "Oh, The Maid of Mudgee is a lovely thing, lovely"—a young woman was pronouncing from the top of the broken chair which served as stool to give access to this top row. "Y'aven' got a new Zaine Greye, have yer?" She spoke in these tones of unmitigated intimacy to the white moustached librarian. One would have thought he was her dear old dad. Then came a young railway man who had heard there was a new Nat Gould.

"But," said Somers, as he and Harriet went off with a Mary E. Mann and a George A. Birmingham, " I don't wonder they can't read English books, or only want Nat Gould. Al the scruples and the emotions and the regrets in English novels do seem waste of time out here."

"I suppose," said Harriet, "if you don't have any inside life of your own it must seem a waste of time. But look at it—look!"

The object she bade him look at was a bone of contention between them. She wanted to give five pounds to have four posts and an iron chain put round it, and perhaps a bit of grass sowed inside the enclosure. He declared that they'd