The Dean had to agree the point. The study
'One of those people who pokes his nose where it doesn't belong, I fancy,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, and sniffed. He sniffed again, and looked down at the book he'd picked at random.
'This is a pressed squid collection,' he said.
'Oh, is it any good? I used to collect starfish when I was a boy,' said Ponder.
The Lecturer in Recent Runes shut the book and frowned at him over the top of it. 'I daresay you did, young man. And old fossils too, I expect.'
'I always thought that old fossils might have a lot to teach us,' said Ponder. 'Perhaps I was wrong,' he added darkly.
'Well, I for one have never believed all that business about dead animals turning into stone,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'It's against all reason. What's in it for them?'
'So how do you explain fossils, then?' said Ponder.
'Ah, you see, I don't,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, with a triumphant smile. 'It saves so much trouble in the long run. How do skinless sausages hold together, Mister Stibbons?'
'What? Eh? How should I know something like that?'
'Really? You don't know
'Well, what are we put here for?' said Ponder.
There you go again,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'Says here it's girt by sea,' said the Senior Wrangler.
He looked up at their stares.
This continent EcksEcksEcksEcks,' he added, pointing at a page. 'Says here "Little is known about it save that it is girt by sea." '
'I'm glad to see
'Apparently.'
'Well... it would be, wouldn't it,' said Ridcully. 'Anything else?'
'I used to know a Gert,' said the Bursar. The terror of the Library had sent his somewhat erratic sanity on a downward slide into the calm pink douds again.
'Not... very much,' said the Senior Wrangler, flicking through the pages. 'Sir Roderick Purdeigh spent many years looking for the alleged continent and was very emphatic that it didn't exist.'
'Quite a jolly gel. Gertrude Plusher, I think her name was. Face like a brick.'
'Yes, but he once got lost in his own bedroom,' said the Dean, thumbing through another book. 'They found him in the wardrobe.'
'I wonder if it's the same Gert?' said the Bursar.
'Could be, Bursar,' said Ridcully. He nodded at the other wizards. 'No one's to let him have any sugar or fruit.'
For a while there was no sound but the splash of water behind the door, the turning of pages and the Bursar's randomized humming.
'According to this note in Wasport's
'Yes, but they always make up that sort of thing,' said Ridcully. 'Otherwise it's too boring. It's no good coming home and just saying you were shipwrecked for two years and ate winkles, is it? You have to put in a lot of daft stuff about men who go around on one big foot and The Land of Giant Plum Puddings and nursery rubbish like that.'
'My word!' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, who had been engrossed in a volume at the other end of the table. 'It says here that the people on the island of Slakki wear no clothes at all and the women are of unsurpassed beauty.'
'That sounds quite dreadful,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies primly.
There are several woodcuts.'
'I'm sure none of us wish to know that,' said Ridcully. He looked around at the rest of the wizards and repeated, in a louder voice, 'I
There's a mention of EcksEcksEcksEcks in Wrencher's