The Stone Gryphon, Part 1: Ch. 5 Night (and day) at the Museum Part 1

In which Richard instructs Peter on birds, bees, Macrotermes bellicosus and Castor fiber and we learn the reason for Mary's antipathy to King Kong

"L'Angleterre est une nation de boutiquiers."
Attributed to Napoleon I, originally from Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations.

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "otherwise you wouldn't have come here."
The Cat, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, L. Carroll

Richard Russell felt like a sack of elephant dung. However, he simply could not stand the thought that young Peter Pevensie would be mucking about his museum (by all rights, it really was his), for the very first time with someone as inanely dense as one of Copeland's effete-too-in-bred-educated-at-all-the-proper-schools-knows-all-the-right-set trilobites. He knew he'd been waspish with Mary and Asim, but good God, he had to do this. Didn't they see that? A man could die from too much coddling as well as from too little, and it wasn't as if any of their fretting was going to help.

It was well past noon when he finally approached the building. Damn, had there always been that many stairs to the main entrance? He grasped the railing to start up, when he spied Peter sitting on the top step.

"Hello, Richard!" With the appalling energy of youth, Peter came sprinting down and joined him at the bottom step.

"Good afternoon, Peter. Sorry I'm late. I couldn't escape my nannies. Have you been waiting long?"

"Not long, no. I've just been reading letters from my brother and sister."

"They're the ones in Cambridge?" Richard never bothered anymore to censor his scorn for that place.

"Yes and, as you can see, they have quite a lot to say." Peter held out the multiple pages, all tightly filled with a neat, loopy script. "My brother, especially. He has a series of questions for Asim and several things he wanted to share with you."

"Well, out with them!"

Peter looked up at the museum stairs, but Richard was already slowly settling on the stoop, grasping the rail to ease himself down. A little breather after the walk over here wouldn't be amiss, he thought.

Peter sat a step below and Richard was reminded of Greek philosophers and their temple students. It was the setting, he supposed, and Peter's palpable eagerness for anything other than what he probably should have been doing instead.

"I wrote Edmund about our conversation last week, including about the cutting. He's been doing research on the subject and wanted to know if you had thought about…" Peter paused, and referred to the letter. "Here it is. 'Could you ask him if he's thought about the parallels between the African rituals and the crisis in the early Christian churches.?'"

"Quite right. Saint Paul of Tarsus had to find a theological basis for allowing Gentiles and other adult men to join the Christians without undergoing circumcision as was required under Jewish law. He's looking at the Letters to the Galatians?"

"Yes, and Philippians. Edmund's point, well, he has several. Here it is," and Peter began reading again from the letter, "'The key distinction it would seem, is that it was the men themselves who were very motivated to find a solution that avoided the procedure.'" Peter paused, evidently skimming through several paragraphs. "'This is perhaps one of the reasons they were so successful in accomplishing the change as quickly as they did. Also, it was advocated from within by an authoritative and respected man. Of course, it is the men who were both making the decision and seeking to avoid the procedure. If it had been women, I think it likely it might still be in practice today.' That's Edmund's rather cynical conclusion, anyway."

What a strange pair. "So, he is speculating that one way to effect change is to find a personal cost to the men to do it, and a cogent, philosophical voice of opposition from within that develops a culturally relevant justification for abandoning it?"

"Well, you said it in a sentence, and he took a page to work through it but yes, that seems to be his argument. He also mentions," and again Peter referred to the letter, "'how the practice of foot binding was eliminated in China and that there may be some useful lessons there in how to work change from within.' He gets, hmm, rather enthusiastic about that idea." Peter held up another two more pages.

Now that's one that warrants a closer look. Lee and Kun might be helpful; maybe he'd write to Louis about it. "He's got some good ideas. Your brother's a bright man. Anything else?"

"Well, he goes on a bit of a tear that men wouldn't be able to do these things to women and girls at all if there was greater feminine emancipation." With exaggerated weariness, Peter held up another page that even Richard could see had a sloppier, more animated style to it. "He heaps particular outrage on the corset and high heel shoes."

Richard laughed, both at the letter and Peter's undisguised fondness. "You're brother's wasted at Cambridge. He'd better be careful; espousing radical views like that might get him booted." Not that he'd be any better off here.

Peter began folding up the letter carefully and tucked into his jacket. Next to the one from his sister, evidently. I wonder what she's like, Richard mused. More like which brother? Or peculiar in her own way?

"He's not at Cambridge. He's just staying there, with our aunt and uncle."

"Where's he at, then? London? York?"

"Blackpool Forest Grammar School."

Richard grabbed the railing again with a grunt. Getting up was going to be worse than sitting down.

"Not heard of it. What does he teach?"

"He's a student. Edmund is three years younger than I am."

Oh good Lord. That was the impetus he needed, and the laughter gave him the final push to his feet. "You had me going quite well there, Peter."

"I wasn't trying to have one on you, Richard, honestly. I tend to assume that everyone's younger brothers make such forceful points. I'm flattered on his behalf and, when I tell him your observation, he'll be delighted. He's a bit envious of me, I'm afraid."

An unpleasant thought struck him. "You didn't tell me before, did you? How old your brother was?"

"No, I didn't."

"Oh. Good." Richard eyed the stairs again and now the arm Peter had wordlessly offered. He'd climbed pyramids and temples for God's sake. Yet, the steps of his own museum had become daunting.

He took Peter's arm, grasped the railing with his other hand, and began the slow climb upward.

"Are your parents radical intellectuals as well?"

"No, quite the opposite. My mother works as a secretary when we are away at school. My father is a logician by training."

Now that was amusing. Richard laughed again, feeling his mood and feet lighten with the simple joy of it. "At Cambridge, I assume?"

"Of course."

"So, I've been maligning your father?"

"Not him, only where he trained!"

"What was he doing before the war? Teaching?"

"Some, but he's mostly a writer. He edits math books and journal articles. He worked for a publisher before he was called up." At the landing mid-way, Peter hesitated. "He was granted leave to go to New York and Washington this summer to give lectures."

Richard stopped with him. "That's…unusual."

"You think so as well?" Peter was looking at him carefully and Richard saw the uncertainty and anxiety of a boy who was very worried about his family and trying very hard not to show it. "I've never heard the like."

Another question or two, carefully phrased, would tell him more surely.

"If you can satisfy my curiosity, do you know who extended the invitation?"

"A Canadian, I think. Someone who handles passports for the government and, I suppose, lecturers in New York and Washington."

"William Stephenson, by any chance?"

"I think so, or some name like that. It all happened suddenly."

It was a name he'd heard once or twice. Richard had done a bit of careful reading thereafter. He did not think Churchill would have just let the Americans sit out the war; the Americans had only entered it six months ago, and then, only because Pearl Harbour had been attacked. Even now, England continued to fight the European war alone and the Americans persisted in their isolationist myopia focused only on the Pacific. Roosevelt probably didn't like this state of affairs much either. Richard could think of several reasons why England might want talented men in America, more so if they were clever writers. There would be need for a logician or two as well. "Peter, a few more words and then we won't discuss this again."

Richard began the climb again, walking and speaking carefully. "To reassure you, your father is not the first man I've heard of who has been called to America for what seems a peculiar reason. I daresay it fits a certain profile. We can probably guess at what some of the real and very good reasons might be. Do you understand what I mean?"

Peter stared at him, eyes widening just a bit. He nodded.

"Good. Don't share that with anyone else outside your family and don't put anything obvious about it in letters to your brother or sister. Don't write to your parents about your suspicions at all. In fact, the less of consequence said to your parents in your letters to them this summer, the better."

Living with Asim for so long had taught him a thing or two about how much trouble could be avoided if one was cautious about what one said, when, to whom, and, conversely, how easily one could unwittingly draw unwanted attention.

"Thank you, for that advice."

Richard patted the arm that supported him. "They are probably safer than we are." Until they try to cross the Atlantic, but Richard kept silent on that point.

The Oxford Natural History Museum crowned the rise, affording it a beautiful prospect. At the top, Richard drew a deep breath. Every year, he appreciated the place more. "The museum was completed in 1860, within a year after Darwin published Origin of the Species. It's considered to be the finest example of neo-Gothic architecture at the University, and really one of the greatest in the country."

He brought Peter to the front door and pointed above the entrance portico. "Look up, do you see that?"

Peter shaded his hand over his eyes and squinted. "The carvings? They don't look complete."

"They aren't which is quite fitting for a museum built by academics for academics. The whole building is like that, with bits stopped in the middle and unfinished; it's half the charm of the place. The sculptures, can you tell what they are?"

"Owls. And parrots?"

"Yes. Each outer window was supposed to have carvings of animals and plants. The entrance should have had something appropriately imposing. But, being academics, they ran out of money. The sculptors were so angry they carved parrots and owls above the entrance, which at the time was taken as rude commentary on the University Convocation. In the fine tradition of encouraging academic critique, the sculptors were sacked."

"That one looks finished."

Richard looked to where Peter was pointing. "Oh yes. That's the Cat Window. They were supposed to be monkeys, but evolution was still too controversial, so, again in the interest of preserving academic freedom as long as you agree with the prevailing view of the moment, they changed them to cats."

"Real Cats?"

"Well, no, not real cats. They're stone cats, representing Family Felidae of the Order Carnivora, etcetera."

With not another word, Peter strode over to the window. If he had said penguins or cobras, Richard did not think Peter could have been more shocked. But, cats? Would that be the domestic cat, Felis catus, that so absorbed him? Perhaps, the great cats of genus Panthera?

Eventually, Peter returned, looking inexplicably amused. "Sorry. I just have a particular fondness for cats."

Cats.

"Don't apologize, Peter. It annoys me. The fun of this place will be to discover what interests you."

"Oh, I'm sure it will all be interesting."

It was so absurd, Richard really couldn't contain himself. "Don't be ridiculous, boy. It's not all interesting, not even to me. I'm not your tutor, or your parents, so stop pretending to be deferential when you obviously aren't. If something is dull, say so. If you see another cat window, speak up."

It wasn't fair to berate Peter for blundering into this particular peeve of his. Peter wasn't one of Richard's students, and so had never had the opportunity to learn just how much he truly loathed obsequious pandering. Stand like a man! (Or woman! He didn't really much care.) State your views! I already know mine! Don't just repeat them back to me! Plenty of students failed this fundamental lesson and ran away never to return.

Peter, to his credit, didn't flinch, or back down, but merely waited for the outburst to end, barely concealing a look of tolerant forbearance – rather like the one he had for his brother, actually. Maybe I remind him of someone and he thinks I'm amusing. Maybe he thinks I'm just a crotchety curmudgeon. Maybe getting yelled at is at least better than exam tutorials and Duns Scotus. Or, maybe he's almost as smart as that brother of his, already knows I'm pushing him on purpose, and isn't going to be intimidated.

Confirming the last theory, Peter asked, "Are there other cat windows?"

"Not that I know of; I was speaking metaphorically."

Richard pulled the keys from his jacket. "We keep an extra set or, three. They've never bothered to change the locks since I left." He found himself staring at his own shaking hand then looked at the impossibly small keyhole. It might as well have been a camel through the eye of a needle. "Peter, would you please?" He hated the indignity of asking but hated still more the weakness so obviously displayed. At least this way, Peter wouldn't know that he probably could not have ever even managed to get the right key into the tiny lock.

Peter took the keys, opened the door, and stepped back to let Richard through first.

"So, here we are. We won't get through all of it this afternoon."

Richard stepped into the Court and waited, letting the beauty of the place speak for itself. Peter slowly followed him into the grand space. He was curious to see what would catch the boy's imagination. The dinosaur skeletons were usually what commanded the eye and attention first.

Peter however stood at the threshold, staring straight up, eyes wide. "It's like a church," he said, barely above a whisper. "But a ceiling of glass."

"You are absolutely right. It's a cathedral to science. The glass roof is supported by cast iron and decorated with wrought iron. It was a fairly common style in the 1840's, but I really think this is the finest example of the architectural form. There is nothing better than natural light and it really is humbling to know that God is peering directly in on all His good Creation assembled and displayed here."

Giving him an odd, sideways look, Peter walked over to the nearest stone column, and looked up to the carved colonnade, studying it, touching the stone gently. Richard let him take his time. Having so abused him for professing interests he didn't have, he wasn't going to harass the boy when he indulged in something that did interest him. That was the point of a place as eclectic as this one was, to find your passion and pursue it.

Finally, Peter said, "There are trees in the decoration, aren't there?"

"There's much more than that, if you take the time to see them."

Peter again looked up, taking it all in. The afternoon summer sun filtered down, illuminating the Court and all the bits and bobs, flotsam and jetsam of the Earth's creative process within it.

"There are bigger museums, of course," Richard found himself saying. "Some are very striking and, frankly have much better collections. But, I don't think any are so beautifully done, where the purpose of the place is so perfectly matched to its design. It truly unites form and function and mirrors the Creation it houses."

Into the continuing silence, Richard wondered if Peter had yet come to understand the essential tenet of Kirke's theorem extrapolating upon the Franciscan world view: it all could be made to fit together. Whether it be human, animal, or space, any thing doing well what it was intended and created to do was a glorification of the Divine. Did he see how even a physical structure, whether well built by human or animal, was praise onto God?

"There are thirty columns surrounding the Court, all made from different decorative British stone. The one you are looking at is granite, from Cornwall. As you've noticed, each has carvings of different plants and animals. There are date palms on the top of that column. I admit I've never understood why palm trees adorn the entrance to the Oxford Museum."

"Anymore cats?"

"In the columns, I really couldn't say. But, you could certainly make a study of it."

Peter shook his head. "Tempting, but no."

"They aren't cats, but most visitors don't want to miss them. Shall we visit the really big lizards?"

Peter stared up at their first stop inside the Court. "They are impressive."

"Dinosaurs are, certainly. They were an incredibly successful species that were around for far longer than we have been. Most of what's on display here is from England. You'll have to go to London or my ballroom to see the ones from China and Africa. This fellow here is Megalosaurus bucklandi. He's a bit of a mess, and is obviously incomplete, but he does have the distinction of being the first dinosaur identified. "

"Buckland's big lizard?"

"I see you've not neglected your classics."

"Between the Professor and my father, neglect was never an option."

There was an uncharacteristically brittle quality to Peter's voice. "Dead languages not an interest for you, Peter?"

He shrugged and dug his hands into his jacket pockets, looking a bit uncomfortable. "Dead languages, dead people, dead places, isn't that what a classics education is?"

Richard filed that away for further reflection. He had taught many young men and an ever increasing number of women over the years. He wasn't sure he saw Peter conforming to the rather tight fitting mold of the traditional classics curriculum.

They went around the Megalosaurus case to the complete skeletons on display. "This one over here is a dinosaur that was native to Oxfordshire, about 150 million years ago, give or take. Eustreptospondylus oxoniensis. It amuses me to think of it stomping about, rampaging through the colleges and devouring all the Vice Chancellors but, as the theropods go, it really isn't that large. Still, it's the most complete carnivore found in Europe, which is odd because, we've found the herbivores, and something must have eaten them. Mary would know if there is anything more recent."

"Curved…spine?" Peter puzzled out the name. "From Oxford."

"Close enough." He directed Peter to another mounted skeleton. "This big one is Iguanodon bernissartensis. Don't ask Mary about him. She'll rant for hours on how it was Gideon Mantell's wife, Mary Ann, who was the one to first identify it as something other than a really big crocodile."

"The Professor warned me about that."

"Mary's wrath is certainly warranted – science has tended to ignore the contributions women have made or could make. But, she does tend to take it personally. The ichthyosaurs aggravate her especially."

Peter was staring at the skeleton with more attention than before. "Something catch your eye, Peter?"

"Well…"

"Out with it. And none of that nonsense from tea last week. You have opinions, so state them and defend them."

Peter's look sharpened at the prodding. Good man, you aren't stupid, for all that you have a brilliant tutor and a father and younger brother who probably are as well. Still, when Peter spoke, it was the verbal equivalent of someone walking on stilts.

"It's how it's standing straight up and resting on its tail. It doesn't look very comfortable." He paused and then amended, "I suppose 'natural' would be a more scientifically appropriate word."

"I've not bothered with the dinosaurs for a few years now; I leave that to Mary." Richard stared at the Iguanodon again, trying to analyze it as something other than what had just always been there, and matching it to what he had seen in the intervening years. "There are a number of animals that do use some type of bi-pedal locomotion, at least some of the time, but I don't think most use their tails that way."

"No, they usually use them for balance or communication. That's a big animal and tails typically aren't large enough or strong enough to support weight like that."

Richard was surprised at the confident and sound observations. So, you do have interests! Opinions, even? Besides cats, and glass ceilings, Peter was interested in, what? Comparative zoological anatomy?

He studied the tail more closely. "Damn. Would you look at that? Peter, you are quite right and this is not remotely natural." He pointed. "Look there, do you see it four, no, five back on the vertebral column. They broke the tail bones to get it in that position."

"I'm just trying to think of animals that might stand that way. I'm not coming up with many." Under his breath, Peter was ticking off on his fingers a fairly impressive list for someone who supposedly knew nothing of natural history. Richard heard "horse," "cheetah," "fox" and some mumbled reflections on river otters and weasels.

It did however reflect a rather typically charismatic and mammalian point of view. He injected, "Reptiles will drag their tails, like lizards and crocodylians, but none are bi-pedal. Arboreal animals, like New World monkeys, may have a prehensile tail adaptation, but that's not a good model for a dinosaur." Richard took a step backward, getting a broader view of the Iguanodon as Peter continued to mutter his way through his list. "This specimen is mounted a bit like a kangaroo, actually, and they do use their tails for balance, but it is a very unusual animal."

"Oh! I've got another one, Richard! Beavers! Beavers will prop themselves on their tails when they sit up."

How had Peter come up with beavers? That was just uncanny. "You are right, they do. Where have you seen beavers before?"

And as quickly as it had come, Peter's assurance disappeared. Replacing it was an odd pausing before he spoke and that sense of carefully chosen words. "Not here," he finally answered.

"I shouldn't think so. The Eurasian beaver, Castor fiber, has been extinct from England since the 16th century."

Peter nodded, but didn't say anything more, leaving Richard perplexed. Where did the confidence go? Why would beavers be the trigger? What is he worried about? He said 'not here'? Where is 'here'? What is he concealing in those careful articulations?

Eventually, Peter offered, "I was so disappointed when I realized there weren't any left in England." Richard had the sense that Peter was very much lost in his own thoughts, staring at the skeleton, as if trying to find a likeness that really wasn't there. "I looked into it, a few years ago, at the Professor's old house. I was hoping we might find one on the grounds."

With wistful regret, Peter concluded, "It's such a shame that they're gone."

Peter spoke with such genuine feeling, it took him by surprise and interrupted his own musing. It was a sadness Richard very much shared and he could but agree.

"They are indeed marvelous, adaptable creatures. I greatly admire them, as does my engineering expert, Mr. Patel."

"One builder to another?"

"Precisely. It would be wonderful to see them reintroduced into England."

He heard a humph of contemptuous disgust. "Wouldn't people just shoot and trap them again?"

"Well, we couldn't just drop them into Yorkshire and hope for the best. It would have to be managed. We've grown wiser about such things and, fortunately, this mistake isn't an irrevocable one. Churchill's bulldog may be the metaphor for getting us through the war, but once it ends, I think the industrious beaver would be the better totem for England."

Peter looked at him curiously. "It sounds as if you've given this a lot of thought."

Richard clapped him on the shoulder, unexpectedly delighted to find someone else who appreciated this peculiar rodent. "You're very perceptive, Peter. I have. Mary thinks it's a bit mad, but beavers are a personal project of mine and Mr. Patel's. I've made a study of their habitats and collected a number of photographs. It's all upstairs, along with actual specimens, both of C. fiber and its Canadian cousin."

"Maybe we could see them later?"

"Certainly. I'd be pleased to show you. Up in the mammal section it's a bit like Darwin's attic, but we'll see if we can find them."

He had intended to next introduce Peter to the ichthyosaurs (Mary would be very irritated if he didn't). However, the beaver discussion was causing Richard to reassess that plan. "Most people who come here fall in love with the giant lizards. I'm not sensing that in you."

"No, it's interesting."

Richard snorted. "There you go again."

"Truly, I am very grateful to be here. I am interested."

"Because anything is more interesting than Duns Scotus?"

"Well, yes, that's certainly part of it," Peter admitted.

Still, Richard could see it plainly. He knew the mad, passionate look of someone who had fallen in love with rock, bone, and really big lizards that had been dead a very long time. Peter has professed no love for dead languages, dead men, and dead places. Whatever he might say to the contrary, fossils didn't make his eyes light up and voice crack with animated wonder. Yet, glass and iron, cats and beavers did.

"They do have a nice little exhibit to Lewis Carroll and Alice's Wonderland. Alice's Dodo is here."

"I'm embarrassed to say I've not read Alice. It's a favorite book of my youngest sister, though."

"Carroll, his real name was Dodgson, was on faculty here. Logician and mathematician like your father. When he was writing the book he incorporated all sorts of specimens from this museum– the Dodo, the eaglet, the lory, the duck, and so on."

"But no gryphon or mock turtle?"

"There are turtle shells, but they are quite real and not imitation at all."

Peter looked around again, taking a wider view of the columns, and the cases between them filled with bits of bone, bugs, and birds. Alice's Dodo squatted in his glass coffin. Such a shame. Not an attractive bird and certainly not an intelligent one. Yet, it was not deserving of such a fate. That little bit of God's good Creation was tragically gone forever.

"Why do people do this?" he heard Peter ask. For a moment, he thought the boy had been divining his thoughts about extinction, but Peter was studying a large case filled with shiny beetles. The brightly coloured carapaces glittered iridescent in the afternoon sun. "My cousin does the same thing, pins bugs on to cards. It seems cruel."

Richard joined him at the case. "It might be cruel, depending on if the insect is alive when you pierce it, and if it feels pain. There's also a voyeuristic quality to it, but that's where the science and learning come in."

"How?" Richard thought he heard something trending toward argumentative in the query.

"Darwin developed his theories of natural selection in part from examining the beaks of finches and realizing that the birds had adapted to different island environments. Looking at these beetles we can study how they are alike and different, and what forces of nature made them adapt to be the way they are. We come to understand them better and why they are important, and perhaps can prevent what happened to the Dodo from happening to them."

"Oh." Peter silently studied the dozens of beetles, large and small, thin and fat, all pinned to the canvas as a strange work of entomological art. "Yes," he finally conceded, "I can see that." Peter pointed to the Dung beetle. "It's hard to believe that that African bug is related to your typical English stag beetle, yet they plainly are when you put them up like this."

"That is rather the point of it," Richard agreed.

"Still, it's what makes me worry about the beaver. Who's to say someone like my cousin wouldn't just stab him with a pin and put him on a board?"

That seemed rather fierce. Is it dislike of the cousin? Or love of the beaver?

"Sacrifice is part of the study," Richard had to admit. Some aspects of it made him uncomfortable and what he might have done 30 years ago would be unthinkable now. "There is less of it now than there used to be precisely because we understand better that this good Creation is not limitless and we owe it greater respect than it has been afforded in the past."

Peter was still looking a bit rebellious, even angry, though he hid it well. It wasn't remotely objective, but it was genuine, and Richard very much respected the passion that was behind it.

"You see, Peter, I actually find great hope for the remarkable beaver in all this," he waved his hand, encompassing the whole of the Court. "I don't see death as the object of it at all."

Peter looked back toward the poor Dodo. After a moment, he said reluctantly, "I suppose it reminds of the folly of needless killing."

"There is that, but more as well." Richard moved to Peter's side, and pointed. "Here is a monumental collection of beetles, from all over the world, and there, that list? See it?"

Peter squinted a bit, peering through the glare of the glass reflection at the long, long, neatly printed list of names next to the beetles. "Yes."

"Those are the good people who brought home in their pockets the bugs they found on their holidays. And this home grown collection stands next to that one," Richard pointed at the next case. "It contains the crustaceans Charles Darwin collected during his expeditions on the Beagle. And over there," he gestured toward the coffin, "is a bird that found its way into a children's book so extraordinary it stands for all time as a classic in logic, philosophy and satire." He waved more vaguely in the direction of the dinosaurs. "Those fossils come here from country doctors who found bits of jawbones on roadsides, miners who uncovered whole skeletons in quarries, and gentle ladies who tucked their long skirts up and waded into the Channel to find 300 million year old shells."

"So tell me," Richard said, turning back to Peter, with a gentler challenge. "I'm sure you've been to great museums before. London is full of them. But, can you make any sense of this?"

The boy looked around again, eyes widening as when first he entered the Court. Did he see what Richard saw? Could he? A grin slowly spread across Peter's face and settled there, replacing the combativeness. "It is a bit mad, isn't it?"

"Utterly. It's unique. The Oxford Museum has specimens from all over the world, but the way that they came to be here, and are cataloged and displayed, that is quintessentially English. It's a very easy thing to love, if you can love absurdity. It's not just this place that is extraordinary, but what it holds and the people who put it here."

"And you think that the same people who collected all these oddities could love a beaver?"

"Absolutely. We're not just a nation of shopkeepers and coalminers and fishermen. Or, well, we are, but that stereotype barely scratches the surface of our eccentric soul. Together we're beating back a dreadful tyranny, at a dreadful cost. After our finest hour is over and all that, yes, I do think that the English would want to peaceably coexist with the humble beaver."

Richard let that bit of lesson sink in. It wasn't the traditional one, but Peter wasn't the traditional student either. Instinct told him Peter fit very comfortably among the mad dogs and Englishmen who go out in the midday sun.

"How about we go upstairs to the beehive and the specimen collections and look for the beavers? It isn't part of the usual tour, but bother that."

"Desperately shorthanded, the BSC [British Security Coordination] recruited brains and talent where it could find them, often making only a cursory background check. They brought in friends, family members, and personable colleagues like a club voting in new members, the only qualifications being evidence of a certain confidence and imagination and the assumption of shared values." The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington, Jennet Conant

Ch. 6 Night (and day) at the Museum Part 2
In which there is further instruction on birds, bees, and Macrotermes bellicosus and not as much about Castor fiber and we learn (finally) the reason for Mary's antipathy to King Kong