Someone bent down beside me and began picking up slips. He had long, beautiful fingers, but the thumb on his left hand was misshapen. Gareth, the compositor. I had a vague memory of this happening before. He picked up one slip after another, dusting each off before handing it to me.

“You’ll be able to sort them later,” he said. “For now, it’s best to just get them, and you, off this cold floor.”

“It was my fault,” I heard myself say.

Gareth didn’t respond, he just continued to hand me the slips. It had been years since I stole his type, and despite his friendliness I had managed to discourage anything more than a polite acquaintance.

“It’s just a hobby. They don’t really belong here,” I said.

Gareth paused for a moment, but still said nothing. Then he gathered up the last slip, traced his finger over it and read the word out loud: “Pillock.” He looked up, smiling; lines fanning out from around his eyes.

“There’s an example of how it is used,” I said, leaning closer to point out the quotation on the slip.

“Seems about right,” he said, reading it. “And who’s Tilda Taylor?”

“She’s the woman who used the word.”

“These aren’t in the Dictionary, then?”

I stiffened. “No. None of them are.”

“But some are quite common,” he said, sifting through them.

“Among the people who use them, they are. But common isn’t a prerequisite for the Dictionary.”

“Who uses them?”

I was ready now to have the fight I’d shied from just minutes earlier. “The poor. People who work at the Covered Market. Women. Which is why they’re not written down and why they’ve been excluded. Though sometimes they have been written down, but they’re still left out because they are not used in polite society.” I felt exhausted, but defiant. My hands were still shaking, but I was ready to go on. I looked him in the eye. “They’re important.”

“You better keep them safe, then,” said Gareth, standing as he passed me the last slip. Then he offered his hand and helped me off the floor.

I took the slips back to my desk and put them beneath the lid. Then I turned to Gareth. “Why are you actually here?” I asked.

He opened his satchel and pulled out proofs for the latest fascicle. “ ‘Sleep to Sniggle,’ ” he said, holding them in the air. “If there aren’t too many edits, we could go to print before Christmas.” He smiled, nodded, then delivered the proofs to Dr. Murray’s desk before leaving the Scriptorium. I thought he might turn and smile again, but he didn’t. If he had, I would have told him there were likely to be plenty of edits.