His head ached. He felt it was several weeks past his bedtime. But he had to say something.
"Gentlemen -" he began.
"Oook."
"Sorry, and mo -"
"Oook."
"I mean apes, of course -"
"Oook."
The Archchancellor opened and shut his mouth in silence for a while, trying to re-route his train of thought. The Librarian was, ex officio, a member of the college council. No-one had been able to find any rule about orang-utans being barred, although they had surreptitiously looked very hard for one.
"It's a haunting," he ventured. "Some sort of a ghost, maybe. A bell, book and a candle job."
The Bursar sighed. "We tried that, Archchancellor."
The Archchancellor leaned towards him.
"Eh?" he said.
"I said, we tried that, Archchancellor," said the Bursar loudly, directing his voice at the old man's ear. "After dinner, you remember? We used Humptemper's Names of the Ants and rang Old Tom."
"Did we, indeed. Worked, did it?"
"No, Archchancellor."
"Eh?"
"Anyway, we've never had trouble with ghosts before," said the Senior Tutor. "Wizards just don't haunt places."
The Archchancellor groped for a crumb of comfort.
"Perhaps it's just something natural," he said. "Possibly the rumblings of an underground spring. Earth movements, perhaps. Something in the drains. They can make very funny noises, you know, when the wind is in the right direction."