Poetic Justice Read Online Free PDF

request, but was still far from immune to personal ones. “Frogmore is offered a job every other day, as presidentof this college or that. Everyone’s looking for administrators; they’re almost as scarce as plumbers and doctors. Probably he’ll go off to some rural collegiate paradise before long, but I think his devotion to the University College is unquestionable. Everyone has underestimated Frogmore from the beginning, I among them. But let me tell you two things about him: he’s got guts you’ll admire, and an oily surface you’ll hate. For one thing, and I want to warn you about this in advance, knowing your prejudices, he calls everyone,
everyone
, by his first name the first moment they meet.”
    “Cripes,” Kate said.
    “I know; that’s why I mention it. You’re remarkably old-world in some ways, Kate.”
    “Remarkably. I don’t mind going to bed at ten at night with a man I met at noon the same day, but I can’t bear being called by my first name until a relationship has had time to mature. Very old-world indeed.”
    McQuire chuckled. “It’s a maddening habit—Frogmore’s, I mean. When I first met him he kept referring to Lou and Teddy, and the conversation had gone on for half an hour before I realized he was speaking of the President and Vice-President of the University. But don’t underestimate him, Kate. He really and truly wants to put the University College on the map, when the easiest thing for him to do would be to cop out.”
    “It might be the easiest thing for all of us. Certainly for me. I can’t imagine, truthfully, why you think I …”
    “Yes, you can. Be good now. I’ll give you a chance later to protest and thrash around, and I promise you, if your answer is really ‘No,’ I’ll back you up.”
    “Which means if I act intelligently interested today,and ask leading questions, you won’t assume I’m committed.”
    “Have I told you yet today,” Bill said, “that you’re beautiful?”
    The luncheon party was held in one of the private rooms of the Faculty Club. The moment Kate and Bill McQuire entered, Frogmore leaped to his feet and rushed forward to greet them at the door. Somewhat overcome by his enthusiasm, the other gentlemen already seated around the table rose to their feet, awkwardly pushing back their chairs, dropping their napkins and brushing crumbs from their laps. (It was one of the unfailing characteristics of the Faculty Club that although service never began until the latest possible moment after one had sat down, there was always present, as part of the table setting, a large, exceedingly stale roll which one found oneself compelled, in time, to pulverize, showering oneself and the table top with crumbs.)
    “Please,” Kate weakly said. The academic community had taken longer than most to shake off old habits of gallantry. When Kate had first joined the faculty she had had to become inured to roomfuls of men rising to their feet as she entered. Gradually, of course, the custom had died out. Only Frogmore, with his bouncy manner and boy-scout demeanor, had trapped them into old habits.
    “So this is Kate,” Frogmore said. “Thank you, Bill, for bringing her.” Kate, regarding Frogmore with a lackluster eye, avoided glancing at McQuire. Clever he: the blow fell less painfully, being expected. “Let me introduce you pronto to the others before getting underway; we’ve got a long agenda. What will you drink, Kate? This is on me; the Dean’s slush fund.”
    “A Bloody Mary please,” Kate demurely said. (Reed had often remarked that when Kate came all over demure, it meant that what she really wanted to do was put a pillow over some chap’s head and sit on it.) Kate did not like, in the ordinary way, to drink at lunch, a meal she avoided if she could, and certainly not when she was in danger of becoming involved in some internecine struggle. She had therefore hit upon the lovely stratagem of ordering a drink which was, at the Faculty Club, equal