During the occupation, Nock was a little awed by the Nary. "They were much faster on the stairs," he remembers, "and that student voice on the loud speaker below it was beastly!" The Navy, however, was greatly awed by Arthur Darby Nock. Harrassed officers tried many manctivers to case Nock to civilian quarters, but they could not budge his resistance nor his thousands of books.

Master Finley recalls, "When the Navy fellows first came here, many looked like they had just come out of the S.S. Oklahoma boiler room. Nock would come up to these boys, whisper a little Latin phrase in their cars, and bob off down Dunster Street. The boys knew then that they were at Harvard."

Nock's associates, while delighted by his eccentricities, always stress his many kindnesses to those around him. His acquaintanceship with under-graduates is somewhat limited, but to the graduate and even the professor, he is always helpful. Personally, he counts the companionship of the Society of Fellows as extraordinarily valuable to him.

In his literary interests, Nock readily admits that he is not an intellectual reader. "I like murder mysteries," he says. "It is the one field on which women are superior to men."

The large step from outstanding scholar of religion to leading raconteur of shaggy dog stories is bridged somewhat by this interest in the mystery. It is still, a little surprising, however, to hear him conclude in his thick British accent: "And the spinster said, 'Oh, no, sir, my dog wasn't nearly as shaggy as that.'" A few words of the punch line may be lost when Nock laughs--a hearty blast followed by a creaky chuckle.

Nock's extensive travels are remembered as fragments of beautiful moments. "I remember dawns: a sunrise in Syria over the snows of Lebanon for example. Or the rainy, wretched, perfectly filthy day in Greece when we turned a corner and suddenly came upon the Acropolis for the first time. And--why, you wouldn't believe how good the Business School looks on particular mornings."

With travels East and West, books in his kitchen, and reams of brilliance in a shopping bag, Nock leads an active, many-sided life, ordered amid the helter-skelter. Choosing the scholar's monastic life, he has in his erratic, diverse way filled an essentially lonely pattern with lifelong friendships and warmth. For his active sense of humor extends beyond Little Audrey and limericks; it takes in his sealskin hat, his omnipresent umbrella, indeed, Arthur Darby Nock himself.