The Return of the Black Widowers Read Online Free PDF Page B

is of the same professional persuasion as our honored guest."
    "Doctor Doctor Stacey," began Drake heavily, "how do you justify your existence?"
    "Less and less as time goes on," said Stacey, unperturbed.
    "What the hell does that mean?" broke in Trumbull.
    "I'm asking the questions," said Drake with unaccustomed firmness.
    "I don't mind answering," said Stacey. "Since the universities seem to be in deeper trouble each year, and as I do nothing about it, my own function as a university appendage seems continually less defensible, that's all."
    Drake ignored that. He said, "You teach at the school where I earned my master's degree. Have you ever heard of me?"
    Stacey hesitated. "I'm sorry, Jim. There are a lot of chemists I haven't heard of. No offense intended."
    "I'm not sensitive. I never heard of you, either. What I mean is: Have you ever heard of me at Berry U.? As a student there?"
    "No, I haven't."
    "I'm not surprised. But there was another student at Berry at the same time as myself. He went on for his doctorate at Berry. His name was Faron, F-A-R-O-N; Lance Faron. Did you ever hear of him?"
    "Lance Faron?" Stacey frowned.
    "Lance may have been short for Lancelot; Lancelot Faron. I don't know. We always called him Lance." Finally Stacey shook his head. "No, the name isn't familiar."
    Drake said, "But you have heard of David St. George?"
    "Professor St. George? Certainly. He died the same year I joined the faculty. I can't say I know him, but I've certainly heard of him."
    Trumbull said, "Hell and damnation, Jim. What kind of questions are these? Is this old-grad week?"
    Drake, who had drifted off into thought, scrambled out of it and said, "Wait, Tom. I'm getting at something, and I don't want to ask questions. I want to tell a story first. My God, this has been bothering me for years and I never thought of putting it up to all of you till now that our guest—"
    "I vote the story," shouted Gonzalo.
    "On condition," said Avalon, "it not be construed as setting a precedent."
    "Chair decides the precedents," said Trumbull at once. "Go ahead, Drake. Only, for God's sake, don't take all night."
    "It's simple enough," said Drake, "and it's about Lance Faron, which is his real name, and I'm going to slander him, so you'll have to understand, Arnold, that everything said within these walls is strictly confidential."
    "That's been explained to me," said Stacey.
    "Go on," shouted Trumbull. "You will take all night. I know it."
    Drake said, "The thing about Lance is that I don't think he ever intended to be a chemist. His family was rich enough—well, I'll tell you. When he was doing graduate work, he had his lab outfitted with a cork floor at his own expense."
    "Why a cork floor?" Gonzalo wanted to know,
    "If you'd ever dropped a beaker on a tile floor, you wouldn't ask," said Drake. "He majored in chemistry as an undergraduate because he had to major in something and then he went on to do graduate work in the same field because World War IT was on in Europe, the draft was beginning—it was 1940—and graduate work in chemistry would look good to the draft board. And it did; he never got into the Army as far as I know. But that was perfectly legitimate; I never got into uniform, either, and I point no fingers."
    Avalon, who had been an army officer, looked austere, but said, "Perfectly legitimate."
    Drake said, "He wasn't serious about it—about chemistry, I mean. He had no natural aptitude for it and he never worked, particularly. He was satisfied to get no more than a B minus and it was about all he was good for. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, and it was good enough to sweat out a master's degree for himself—which doesn't amount to much in chemistry. The grades weren't good enough to qualify him for research toward the doctorate, however.
    "That was the whole point. We all—the rest of us who were in graduate chemistry that year—assumed he would only go as far as the master's. Then he'd get some sort of job that