Continuing the chain reaction set up in the previous two reminiscences leads me to the following little story. Again it concerns G. H. Hardy.

At the top of Fine Hall (Princeton's mathematics building) was the university's great mathematics library. Around the outer edges of the library were a number of dormer nooks, each equipped with a chair and a desk. These nooks were for the use of the graduate mathematics students and visiting mathematics scholars. I was assigned one of these nooks and Professor Hardy was given one.

Now every afternoon, at four o'clock, there would be a soft tinkle of a bell. This signified that there were refreshments—ice cream, coffee, tea, milk, sandwiches, etc.—downstairs in the large Common Room. Most of us in the library were interested in these refreshments. But when Professor Hardy was there, we got to know that as soon as the bell tinkled, we had better lean well over our desks to hold down our papers, for like a flash Professor Hardy would streak by and create a vacuum behind him that would suck everything right off your desk. By the time we would get downstairs to the Common Room, we would find Professor Hardy standing very disconsolately in a corner of the room. So one day I thought, “I'm going down early and see what that man does, and why he's so eager to get down there.”