Tiffany’s tanned leg stopped swinging. She watched him warily. On her right, Arlo Gerber, head of the epigraphic unit, had a vaguely apprehensive look in his eyes, but was there really anything extraordinary about that? On Tiffany’s other side, Jerry Baroff, librarian and registrar (and Tiffany’s much-to-be-pitied husband), puffed his pipe and also looked the way he always looked, which was to say elsewhere.

“As you know,” Dr. Haddon went on, “we poor scholars are at the mercy of our old friend Forrest Freeman, the Orson Welles of cinema archeologique, who has been encumbering our normally simple and unassuming lives for several days now, in connection with the making of a manifestly unnecessary, exasperatingly time-consuming, and extraordinarily expensive documentary film-not, of course, that the expenses involved would be of any concern to its sponsors, the estimable Beatrice and Bruno, among us at present for their annual laying on of hands and imperial-”

He paused. “Yes, Arlo?”

“Actually, they’re not making a film. It’s a videotape.”

“Oh, yes? How interesting.”

“I only meant that it’s not as expensive as making a film.”

“Thank you. Will all please note that the record has been set straight.”

Beneath Arlo’s absurd little mustache his mouth quivered and set. He examined his rather grubby fingernails. Dr. Haddon recognized the all-too-familiar signs of resentment and offended dignity. A man of exquisite sensibilities, Arlo Gerber.

“May I continue now?” Dr. Haddon said. “I met with Forrest for some time this afternoon to discuss changes in our schedule. It seems they have run into a conflict with the visa authorities, and must cut their time with us by several days. You can readily imagine how disconsolate I was at this news.