Among the Wonderful Read Free

Archer, but it would do no good to say so.
    “I had expected to be met at the door. I have my things.”Mr. Archer pointed with his cane. “They’re unloading it all now.”
    “I see. Well, come in.”
    Guillaudeu settled Mr. Archer into a chair and hovered near him. “Mr. Barnum is actually not in the building at the moment.”
    “Then who is running the museum,
at the moment
?”
    “Well.” Guillaudeu leaned against his desk. “I’m not sure how to answer that question.”
    “What do you mean, Mr. —”
    “Guillaudeu.”
    “Mr. Guillaudeu. In what way is that question a challenge to you? Who is running this museum?”
    “Well, the theater staff runs the performances; certainly the custodians and ticket-takers manage themselves …”
    Mr. Archer stared at Guillaudeu as if the taxidermist had just told him there were pelicans on the moon. Guillaudeu continued: “The managing chef runs the restaurant and sees to the concession stands. And the exhibits themselves need no supervision. With exceptions, of course. But I tend to those. We’re expecting some kind of naturalist, someone other than myself to look after the new … menagerie.”
    “I see.” Mr. Archer peered again at the office. Bookcases lined one side of the windowless den, and a small reading desk was pushed up against the wall. Chips of petrified wood fallen from the larger museum pieces had found their way to the bookshelves, along with various specimens: a few mice, a robin, a tattered hare. These were duplicates of the specimens in the galleries, too damaged or old for public display. All along the opposite wall, tools hung from hooks in an assortment of sizes, from the tiny silver brain spoon to rib clamps the size and shape of a wolf trap. The worktable was the center of this panorama, displaying its array of tools and the owl spread out, half clothed in its skin. Underneath the table were shelves of jars, metal canisters, and clay pots. There were bottles of alcohol, ether, cornmeal for absorbing a specimen’s natural oils, bags of excelsior, hide-curingsalt, glass eyes in brown, yellow, and even blue (for certain New World nocturnal species). As Mr. Archer swiveled in the chair to take it all in, Guillaudeu saw it as this stranger might: as if a great tide had left surf-blown piles of flotsam.
    “Your wife?” Mr. Archer pointed to the framed likeness on the wall. Guillaudeu’s throat filled with an awful bile that he quickly swallowed.
    “Celia,” he said weakly, not permitting his eyes to meet his, or hers.
    “Well then,” Archer tapped his cane on the floor. “About my office?”
    Guillaudeu cleared his throat. “Given the museum’s rate of growth in recent months, organization is sometimes difficult. Regrettably.”
    Mr. Archer gave a short nod. “I wouldn’t have guessed organization to be the underlying principle here.”
    “I suppose not,” Guillaudeu replied. He did not like the man’s tone, and he still had no idea how Mr. Archer fit into the scheme of the museum.
    “Sir,” Mr. Archer said as he brushed a few golden hairs from his trouser leg. “Where is my office? I’d like to get settled.”
    “If you will excuse me, sir, I will research that detail.” Guillaudeu ran across the hall to the ticket window. “William. Have you heard of a Mr. Archer?”
    “Archer?” William was an elderly Irishman with tufted eyebrows and a wandering eye. He had worked for John Scudder for many years and remained a reliable nexus of information of all kinds. He continued to take coins from the hands of incoming visitors. “Isn’t that the ad man? The fellow from the papers?”
    “Is it? What’s he doing here?”
    “Barnum hired him.”
    “Do you know where his office might be?”
    William laughed, half looking at Guillaudeu for the first time. “Who knows? Not much room down here. I haven’t heard anything about it. But since you’re here, I had a complaintfrom a patron yesterday that you’ll want to know