Poetic Justice Read Online Free PDF Page B

parts of Worcestershire sauce and watery tomato juice with as little vodka as made no difference to anyone not a teetotaler on principle.
    “You know everybody, I’m sure,” Frogmore said. “Luther Hankster of Biology.” Kate, indeed, had stood side by side with Luther Hankster when the police had first and, as it turned out, abortively, been called to clear out the administration building. Playboy turned radical, Hankster kept more or less in the good graces of his colleagues by his unerring good manners and the careful use of a voice never, ever, raised. He was given to outrageously radical pronouncements which, had they been delivered in any but the voice of a man making secret love, would have instantly offended everyone.
    “George Castleman, of course, is our guiding star.” Kate wanted to ask Castleman if he had been tempted lately to public disrobement, but contained herself; she wondered anew at the passion for clichés which seemed, in Frogmore’s case, almost to equal his passion for first names. Castleman, if not a guiding star, was certainly a power in the University, on all the vital committees andpossessed of the kind of political acumen that was almost as rare in an academic community as inspired teaching.
    “Herbert Klein, Political Science. Herbie, I believe you’re not as well known to Kate as the rest of us.” “Herbie,” a man of enormous dignity and baleful looks, rose and shook Kate’s hand with a firmness clearly indicating his wish to dissociate both of them from Frogmore’s unearned intimacy. Kate wondered if anyone else had ever called him Herbie in his life. “We hope you will be able to help us, Professor Fansler,” he formally said. Kate suppressed a grin.
    “And,” Frogmore went relentlessly on, “this is the other stranger to you, Kate: John Peabody, a student in the University College.”
    “Hi,” said Peabody, to whom formality was unknown. Kate looked up in surprise. Although the principle of students serving on all the governing bodies of the University had by now been given token acceptance, in fact where there was a need for delicate decisions, students had so far not usually been present. Peabody, though, was older than any ordinary college man: he looked nearer thirty than twenty.
    “And Tony Cartier is of course from your own department.” Kate could never resist smiling at the sight of Cartier: his ill-controlled restlessness made luncheon meetings a torture to him; he would glance wildly about as though at any moment someone might lock the doors and keep him prisoner here forever.
    The aged waiter took the order for the drinks and scrutinized it with exaggerated care. All the waiters at the Faculty Club were old and slow, though thosechosen for the private rooms were, if not fast, because that was clearly impossible, at least not deliberately slower than age and rheumatism determined. Finding, perhaps to his sorrow, no esoteric and therefore unavailable drinks on the list, the waiter departed.
    Frogmore began to speak. He had not spoken long before Kate became aware that he was, for all his foolish ways, a genius at committee work. Kate, who thought herself remarkably inept on committees, recognized the talent instantly. Thank God, Kate thought; were Frogmore a bumbler they would all be wasting their patience and their time.
    “Now,” Frogmore said, “let us run over the major points in a swift recapitulation, mostly for your benefit, Kate, since the rest of us have been kicking this thing around for quite a while. I don’t want to be long-winded, so I’ll get down to the nitty-gritty, the nuts and bolts.” (Kate had, by the end of this sentence, ceased even to wince; she was taking her beating manfully. “There is one evil which … should never be passed over in silence but be continually publicly attacked, and that is corruption of the language …” Auden had written, but then Auden’s hours were not passed amidst deans and social