Diamond Age or a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

Resting on a counter by the window was an outlandishly shaped black object that Nell recognized as a telephone, only because she had seen them on the old passives that her mother liked to watch– where they seemed to take on a talismanic significance out of proportion to what they actually did. The Constable picked up a piece of paper on which many names and strings and digits had been hand-written. He turned his back to the nearest window, then leaned backward over the counter so as to bring most of him closer to its illumination. He tilted the paper into the light and then adjusted the elevation of his own chin through a rather sweeping arc, converging on a position that placed the lenses of his reading spectacles between pupil and page. Having maneuvered all of these elements into the optimal geometry, he let out a little sigh, as though the arrangement suited him, and peered up over his glasses at Nell and Harv for a moment, as if to suggest that they could learn some valuable tricks by keeping a sharp eye on him. Nell watched him, fascinated not least because she rarely saw people in spectacles.

The Constable returned his attention to the piece of paper and scanned it with a furrowed brow for a few minutes before suddenly calling out a series of several numbers, which sounded random to his visitors but seemed both deeply significant and perfectly obvious to the Constable.

The black telephone sported a metal disk with finger-size holes bored around its edge. The Constable hooked the phone's handset over his epaulet and then began to insert his finger into various of these holes, using them to torque the disk around against the countervailing force of a spring. A brief but exceedingly cheerful conversation ensued. Then he hung up the telephone and clasped his hands over his belly, as if he had accomplished his assigned tasks so completely that said extremities were now superfluous decorations.

"It'll be a minute," he said. "Please take your time, and don't scald yourselves on that tea. Care for some shortbread?"

Nell was not familiar with this delight. "No thank you, sir," she said, but Harv, ever pragmatic, allowed as he might enjoy some.

Suddenly the Constable's hands found a new reason for existence and began to busy themselves exploring the darker corners of old wooden cupboards here and there around the little room. "By the way," he said absent-mindedly, as he pursued this quest, "if you had in mind actually passing through the gate, that is to say, if you wanted to visit Dovetail, as you would be abundantly welcome to do, then you should know a few things about our rules. He stood up and turned toward them, displaying a tin box labeled SHORTBREAD.

"To be specific, the young gentleman's chocky sticks and switchblade will have to come out of his trousers and lodge here, in the loving care of me and my colleagues, and I will have to have a good long look at that monstrous chunk of rod logic, batteries, sensor arrays, and what-haveyou that the young lady is carrying in her little knapsack, concealed, unless I am mistaken, in the guise of a book. Hmmm?" And the Constable turned toward them with his eyebrows raised very high on his forehead, shaking the plaid box.

Constable Moore, as he introduced himself, examined Harv's weapons with more care than really seemed warranted, as if they were relics freshly exhumed from a pyramid. He took care to compliment Harv on their presumed effectiveness, and to meditate aloud on the grave foolishness of anyone's messing about with a young fellow like Harv. The weapons went into one of the cupboards, which Constable Moore locked by talking to it. "And now the book, young lady," he said to Nell, pleasantly enough.

She didn't want to let the Primer out of her hands, but she remembered the kids at the playroom who had tried to take it from her and been shocked, or something, for their trouble. So she handed it over. Constable Moore took it very carefully in both hands, and a tiny little moan of appreciation escaped his lips. "I should inform you that sometimes it does rather nasty things to people who, as it supposes, are trying to steal it from me," Nell said, then bit her lip, hoping she hadn't implied that Constable Moore was a thief.

"Young lady, I should be crestfallen if it didn't."