"They are all old--five hundred years and more. He was a pal of Chaucer's."


She gave him an indignant glance. "So that's it? You're laying traps for
me? You don't like me! You don't respect me!"

One of the recalcitrant cushions fell to the floor. They bumped heads in
trying to pick it up.

"Traps!" he said. "Never in the world! Don't think it! Why, Gower is just a
necessary old bore. Nobody's supposed to know much about him--except
instructors and their hapless students."

He added one more sentence to his letter to "Arthur": "She pushes you
pretty hard. A little of it goes a good way..."

"Oh, if _that's_ the case..." she said. "How about your thesis?" she
went on swiftly. "What are you going to write about?"

"I was thinking of Shakespeare."

"Shakespeare! There you go again! Ridiculing me to my very face!"

"Not at all. There's lots to say about him--or them."

"Oh, you believe in Bacon!"

"Not at all--once more. I should like to take a year and spend it among the
manor-houses of Warwickshire. But I suppose nobody would stake me to that."