Round 19.

19.

The man sitting in the hotel lobby waiting for Mr Quinpot of room 403, is reading a book.

The book is Hard Times, written by Charles Dickens.

The man took the book from the ‘free-help-yourself-put-one-in’ swap cupboard, which is on the wall of the building next to the estate agent’s.

The copy is not in good condition; it has been read many times and the pages are almost all separate.

The man is unsure that he hasn’t read this particular page before.

It is page 70.

The receptionist who invited the waiting man to sit has forgotten that Mr Quinpot is unlikely to return before the 2^nd January; he has returned home to see his family for Christmas and is sitting on a train travelling towards Basingstoke.

The man on the train is reading too.

His reading is something of a coincidence, as is his choice of book.

The Times and Tribulations of Timothy Tibblins is not a Charles Dickens book, but it came from the same swap cupboard as Hard Times.

Lucy who put both books in the cupboard took a copy of an unofficial biography of somebody famous whose name she has forgotten already.

She thinks it will be a perfect Christmas Present for her brother who once mentioned he that he fancied what’s-her-name.

The unofficially biographied celebrity is a woman.

The book is wrapped in red silver paper and Lucy is placing it under the artificial Christmas tree that stands in the corner of her two-room flat in Peckham; she has invited her brother to visit for Christmas lunch.

The man in the hotel lobby has been invited nowhere for Christmas and he may as well stay where he is, reading Hard Times in the Holiday Inn just off the roundabout at The Swiss Cottage.

His own family are far away, mainly in Australia where they have moved for the convenience of distance.

The one member of his family not in Australia is a very distant first cousin whom he has never spoken to.

His name is Charles.

Charles lives in Greenland; he is a research scientist interested in the effect of ice melt on ground moss.

 It is a specialised subject and he has written many papers on his findings that very few people have bothered to read. In return, Charles the research scientist has never read any of Charles Dickens’ work.

It’s a shame, because if he had, the young field assistant Mary who is working beside him cataloguing the deformation of the ground moss would find him a more interesting companion.

She may even have fallen in love with him.

She has read all of Charles Dickens’ work and can quote complete passages.

She is thinking of one as she is cataloguing.

And she has a dog.

The dog’s name is Merrylegs.

Merrylegs is the name of a dog that appears on page 70 of Charles Dickens’ Hard Times.

The man sitting in the Hotel lobby waiting for Mr Quinpot of room 403 to not return because he has gone home for Christmas, is reading.

He is reading a book.

The book is Hard Times, written by Charles Dickens.

It’s a small world sometimes.

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