"True st...?" He breaks off, bewildered. "But I saw it! I, he wanted it so badly. I almost died for that stone! And it's just some sort of metaphor?!"
"Sorry," Q mutters, setting down his pen. "It looked dark, deserted," he goes on. "But when I tried the door, it opened right up. I didn't even try to resist that smell; old paper, leather and ink. There were books everywhere!" Q says, awed. "Big ones, small ones, all old and all just stacked floor to ceiling. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven," he grins. "But it didn't seem as if there was anybody there. So I hallo-ed, and this man just sort of popped up like a jack-in-the-box." Q stops again, remembering the encounter.