At five minutes past ten, when the clergy were beginning to buzz like bees, a car stopped in front of the lawn and young Mr Maybee and Valentine climbed out of it. They were a good deal surprised and discomposed to find a crowd waiting for them, and hurried to open the front door. It had been their intention to sit quietly in the library at a table, arranging some final details of the sale and welcoming the occasional clergyman who might drop in for a book. Instead they were closely followed up the steps, not rudely, but as cattle follow a farmer with a pail of hot mash. When the door was opened the clergy increased their pace, still without rudeness, but with a kind of hungry fervour, and Valentine and young Mr Maybee found that they were entering the library at a brisk trot. It was a room of moderate size, and might perhaps have held fifty people when full. Seventy rushed into it in sixty seconds, and the remainder crowded as close to the entry as they could.

One does not describe the activity of clergymen in a library as looting. They were, in the main, quiet and well-bred men, and it was in a quiet and well-bred manner that they went to work. The pushing was of a moderate order, and the phrase “Excuse me” was often heard. Natural advantages, such as long arms, superior height, and good eyesight were given rein, but there was no actual snatching nor were the old intentionally trodden upon. No very wide choice, no thoughtful ranging of the shelves, was possible in such a crush, and with good-humoured philosophy the visitors seized whatever was nearest. There were a few friendly disagreements; a shovel hat and the brown suit had each got hold of five volumes of a nicely bound ten-volume set of the works of a Scottish metaphysician, and neither could see why the other should not yield his portion. The rabbis, pushed into a corner where there was little but New Testament material, struggled feebly to reach their Promised Land, without knowing precisely where it was to be found. The young priest found his encyclopaedia, but it was too bulky to be moved at one time, and he knew that it would be fatal to leave any part of it behind him, in the hope of making a second trip. An elderly Presbyterian fainted, and young Mr Maybee had to appeal in a loud voice for help to lift him through the window into the open air; Valentine took her chance to crawl out to the lawn, in the wake of the invalid.

“What shall we do?” she asked the auctioneer, who was a nice young man, and supposedly accustomed to dominating crowds.

“God knows,” said Mr Maybee; “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“You must cope,” said Valentine, firmly.

Mr Maybee climbed back upon the windowsill. “Gentlemen,” he called in a loud voice, “will those who have chosen their books please leave as quickly as possible and allow the others to come in? There is no need to crowd; the library will be open all day.”

This was no more effective than a bus-driver’s request to “Step right down to the rear, please.” The clergy at the door would not budge, and the clergy in the library would not attempt to leave until they had filled their pockets and heaped their arms impossibly high. Young Mr Maybee at last climbed down from the windowsill, and confessed defeat to Valentine.

There are times when every woman is disgusted by the bonelessness of men. Valentine had, in her time, directed outdoor pageants with as many as five hundred supernumeraries in the crowd scenes. She quickly climbed upon the windowledge herself.

“This won’t do,” she cried in a loud, fierce voice. “You must follow my directions to the letter, or I shall have to call the police. Or perhaps the Fire Department,” she added, noticing that the magical word “police” had done its work upon these ministers of peace. “All those in the hall go to the lawn at once.” With some muttering, the brethren in the hall did as they were bid. “Now,” she cried, to the crowd in the library, “you must take the books you have chosen and leave by the back door.” In three minutes the library was empty.

By half-past eleven two hundred and thirty-six clergymen had passed through the library, some of them three and four times, and the shelves were bare. Dr Savage’s bequest had been somewhat liberally interpreted, for an inkwell, a pen tray, two letter files, two paperweights, a small bust of Homer, a packet of blotters and an air-cushion which had been in the swivel chair were gone, as well. The widest interpretation had been placed on the word “library” in the advertisement, for some of the visitors had invaded the upstairs regions and made off with two or three hundred detective novels which had been in the old scholar’s bedroom. Even a heap of magazines in the cellarway had been removed.

“I don’t think there is a scrap of printed matter left in the house,” said young Mr Maybee.

He was mistaken. After the rehearsal that night Valentine sat on the lawn with several of the cast of the play who wanted to hear about the adventures of the morning. A picture and an account of the distribution of Dr Savage’s library had appeared in the newspaper, but rumours were abroad that clergy had come to blows, that a Presbyterian had been struck down with thrombosis while taking Calvin on the Evangelists from a high shelf, that a book of photographs called Nudes of All Nations, which had appeared unexpectedly at the back of a shelf of exegesis, had been whisked away under the coat of a bachelor curate, that Voltaire’s Works in twenty-four octavo volumes had been seized by a Baptist fundamentalist and thrown from an upstairs window to his wife, who was waiting on the lawn with a sack—the range of speculation was limited only by the fancy of the people of Salterton. Valentine was able to set their minds at rest, though in doing so she lowered the spirits of several anti-clericals and Antinomians among her hearers.

“Nothing really wild happened,” said she; “it was all quite orderly, after the beginning, though it was amazingly quick and a bit dishevelled at times.”

“But every book went?” said Freddy.

“Not even that. Every book that could be seen went, but when Mr Maybee and I began a complete clear-out of grandfather’s vault we found about ten or twelve more books. They were stored away very neatly in a wooden box; somebody had even wrapped them in brown paper. I can’t imagine why; they looked like the most awful junk. Victorian novels in three volumes, and that sort of thing.”

“They sound fascinating,” said Griselda. “I love Victorian novels.”

“These aren’t really good ones,” said Valentine. “Nothing, I mean, that anybody would want to read. I looked at one or two. We’ve put them in the sale, as a single lot.”

The conversation had passed to other things. But Hector had heard. If Griselda liked Victorian novels he would get these for her. It would be a distinguished gift—not expensive, but a sign of his attentiveness to her tastes. Besides, books were always a safe gift; in his journey through the world Hector had somewhere picked up the information that only books, candy and flowers might be given to a lady without seriously compromising her honour.

Freddy had heard, also. If Dr Savage thought enough of a handful of books to keep them in his vault, they were worth her investigation. Imagine Valentine putting them in the sale without so much as a thought! What ignoramuses theatre people were! Before Freddy went to bed that night she carefully counted her money. She did not expect to have to pay a big price, but she wanted to know just where she stood. Reading a favourite chapter of Life Through the Neck of a Bottle before she went to sleep, she was conscious of a warm glow—a book-collector’s glow when he thinks he may be on the track of a good thing. Old books, old wine—how few of us there are, she reflected, who really appreciate these things.