the timid professor who slumped in the steel chair beside me in the ag reading room at the university of arizona and who had been operating the microfiche machine , which was like a hooded metal siphon dumping darkness over his frowsy white head , seemed rather astonished when i spoke ; his mouth made an absolutely perfectly open o ; i , the young woman who had been so quietly seated in a chair at his side , and who he had envisioned , in his increasingly faulty peripheral vision , to be diligently jotting down notes from her own reel as it was projected on her own microfiche machine , had in fact been peering over his sloping shoulder studying his newspaper page and had taken the bold move now of grabbing the saggy elbow of his old gray sweater ; my dear young lady , did you just speak to me ?