“I suppose this is precisely why they don’t keep it in the museum.”

Colin Shepherd, sweetly, on beds, the Met, and the late E. L. Konigsburg:

This is because, it turns out, the bed really isn’t there. A pamphlet I found online — posted by the museum, and addressed, I like to think, to the Disappointed Bed-Seeker — confirmed it. “Once again,” it said, “that bed isn’t on display, but plenty of beds to fit royalty are.”

I confess, I did not take it well. “But what is one to do with these allegedly comparable beds?” I asked of the vaulted, beaux-arts heavens. “Do they have ‘ornately carved headboards’? ‘Gigantic posts’? Did imaginary children sleep in them while solving an exciting mystery? Did Amy Robsart mysteriously expire next to any of them? No? What kind of business are you running, anyway, with all these beds lying around?”