Librarian - relaxed

There was the pedestal, empty. There was a cloud of marble dust over everything. And striding
out of it, muttering to himself, was Albert.

The wizards at the back of the crowd started to have it away as quickly and quietly as possible. There wasn’t one of them that hadn’t, at some time in his jolly youth, put a common bedroom utensil on old Albert’s head or carved his name somewhere on the statue’s chilly anatomy, or spilled beer on the pedestal. Worse than that, too, during Rag Week when the drink flowed quickly and the privy seemed too far to stagger. These had all seemed hilarious ideas at the time. They suddenly didn’t, now.

Only two figures remained to face the statue’s wrath, one because he had got his robe caught in the door and the other because he was, in fact, an ape and could therefore take a relaxed attitude to human affairs.

***

Mort 169