Guards! Guards!

'Who're you, then?'

'We're the Illuminated and Ancient Brethren of Ee.'

'I thought you met over in Treacle Street,'' said the damp man, after a while.

'Yeah, well. You know how it is. The fretwork club have the room Tuesdays. There was a bit of a mix-up.'

'Oh? Well, thanks anyway.'

'My pleasure.' The little door slammed shut.

The robed figure glared at it for a moment, and then splashed further down the street. There was indeed another portal there. The builder hadn't bothered to change the design much.

He knocked. The little barred hatch shot back.

'Yes?'

'Look, 'The significant owl hoots in the night', all right?'

' 'Yet many grey lords go sadly to the masterless men.' '

' 'Hooray, horray for the spinster's sister's daughter', okay?' '

' 'To the axeman, all supplicants are the same height.' '

' 'Yet verily, the rose is within the thorn.' It's pissing down out here. You do know that, don't you?'

'Yes,' said the voice, in the tones of one who indeed does know it, and is not the one standing in it.

The visitor sighed.

' 'The caged whale knows nothing of the mighty deeps,' ' he said. 'If it makes you any happier.'

' 'The ill-built tower trembles mightily at a butterfly's passage.' '

The supplicant grabbed the bars of the window, pulled himself up to it, and hissed: 'Now let us in, I'm soaked.'

There was another damp pause.

'These deeps ... did you say mighty or nightly?'

'Mighty, I said. Mighty deeps. On account of being, you know, deep. It's me, Brother Fingers.'

'It sounded like nightly to me,' said the invisible doorkeeper cautiously.

'Look, do you want the bloody book or not? I don't have to do this. I could be at home in bed.'

'You sure it was mighty?'

'Listen, I know how deep the bloody deeps are all right,' said Brother Fingers urgently. 'I knew how mighty they were when you were a perishing neophyte. Now will you open this door?'

'Well . . . all right.'

There was the sound of bolts sliding back. Then the voice said, 'Would you mind giving it a push? The Door of Knowledge Through Which the Untutored May Not Pass sticks something wicked in the damp.'

Brother Fingers put his shoulder to it, forced his way through, gave Brother Doorkeeper a dirty look, and hurried within.