in general terms. It’s specific disobedience they come down on heavily.”
“Such as disobedience to themselves?”
“You’ve got it. You’d be amazed. Or perhaps you wouldn’t be. How long do you think we’ve got?” Crowley waved a hand at the Bentley, which unlocked its doors.
“The prophecies differ,” said Aziraphale, sliding into the passenger seat. “Certainly until the end of the century, although we may expect certain phenomena before then. Most of the prophets of the past millennium were more concerned with scansion than accuracy.”
Crowley pointed to the ignition key. It turned.
“What?” he said.
“You know,” said the angel helpfully, “‘And thee Worlde Unto An Ende Shall Come, in tumpty-tumpty-tumpty One.’ Or Two, or Three, or whatever. There aren’t many good rhymes for Six, so it’s probably a good year to be in.”
“And what sort of phenomena?”
“Two-headed calves, signs in the sky, geese flying backwards, showers of fish. That sort of thing. The presence of the Antichrist affects the natural operation of causality.”
“Hmm.”
Crowley put the Bentley in gear. Then he remembered something. He snapped his fingers.
The wheel clamps disappeared.
“Let’s have lunch,” he said. “I owe you one from, when was it … ”
“Paris, 1793,” said Aziraphale.
“Oh, yes. The Reign of Terror. Was that one of yours, or one of ours?”
“Wasn’t it yours?”
“Can’t recall. It was quite a good restaurant, though.”
As they drove past an astonished traffic warden his notebook spontaneously combusted, to Crowley’s amazement.
“I’m pretty certain I didn’t mean to do that,” he said.
Aziraphale blushed.
“That was me,” he said. “I had always thought that your people invented them.”
“Did you? We thought they were yours.”
Crowley stared at the smoke in the rearview mirror.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s do the Ritz.”
Crowley had not bothered to book. In his world, table reservations were things that happened to other people.
AZIRAPHALE COLLECTED BOOKS. If he were totally honest with himself he would have to have admitted that his bookshop was simply somewhere to store them. He was not unusual in this. In order to maintain his cover as a typical second-hand bookseller, he used every means short of actual physical violence to prevent customers from making a purchase. Unpleasant damp smells, glowering looks, erratic opening hours—he was incredibly good at it.
He had been collecting for a long time, and, like all collectors, he specialized.
He had more than sixty books of predictions concerning developments in the last handful of centuries of the second millennium. He had a penchant for Wilde first editions. And he had a complete set of the Infamous Bibles, individually named from errors in typesetting.
These Bibles included the Unrighteous Bible, so called from a printer’s error which caused it to proclaim, in I Corinthians, “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit the Kingdom of God?”; and the Wicked Bible, printed by Barker and Lucas in 1632, in which the word not was omitted from the seventh commandment, making it “Thou shalt commit Adultery.” There were the Discharge Bible, the Treacle Bible, the Standing Fishes Bible, the Charing Cross Bible and the rest. Aziraphale had them all. Even the very rarest, a Bible published in 1651 by the London publishing firm of Bilton and Scaggs.
It had been the first of their three great publishing disasters.
The book was commonly known as the Buggre Alle This Bible. The lengthy compositor’s error, if such it may be called, occurs in the book of Ezekiel, chapter 48, verse five.
2. And bye the border of Dan, fromme the east side to the west side, a portion for Afher.
3. And bye the border of Afher, fromme the east side even untoe the west side, a portion for Naphtali.
4. And bye the border of Naphtali, from the east side untoe the west side, a portion for Manaffeh.
5. Buggre Alle this for a Larke. I amme sick to mye Hart of typefettinge. Master Biltonn if no Gentelmann, and Master Scagges noe more than a tighte fisted Southwarke Knobbefticke. I telle you, onne a daye laike thif Ennywone with half an oz. of Sense shoulde bee oute in the Sunneshain, ane nott Stucke here alle the liuelong daie inn thif mowldey olde By-Our-Lady Workefhoppe. *“Æ@;!*
6. And bye the border of Ephraim, from the east fide even untoe the west fide, a portion for Reuben.8
Bilton and Scaggs’ second great publishing disaster occurred in 1653. By a stroke of rare good fortune they had obtained one of the famed “Lost Quartos”—the three Shakespeare plays never reissued in folio edition, and now totally lost to scholars and playgoers. Only their names have come down to us. This one