Read Online The Bookman's Tale by Berry Fleming - Free Book Online

magazine (some Government tie-in, I don’t know what—neither here nor there). He said it looked as if they might be in the market one day soon for a young Ph.D. in Anthropology and if I knew of somebody there at the University to let him know. They had all kinds of applicants of course but a Doctor’s from Princeton would carry weight. They were putting in for a foundation grant that would cover most of the salary; he mentioned a figure but I’ve forgotten—except that I said I’d like to apply for the job, which made us both laugh.
    Of course I thought of Tuckwell, though he was hardly in line for it with almost another year to go before he would meet the requirements; the opening might well not exist by the time he got the doctorate. I hadn’t seen him all winter, in fact not since the moment with Donna in the cafeteria. We had asked him and Meg over to dinner once but they were busy and we dropped it; too many years between us anyway.
    But one morning in spring I happened to meet X coming out of the Chemistry Building and we talked for a few minutes on the steps. He seemed in good shape but he surprised me by lighting a cigarette. He had given up smoking long ago; as I had too, shaking my head when he held out the pack. I asked about Tuckwell, mentioned the opening in Washington, or what had been an opening, possibly filled by then.
    He knew about it. Tuckwell knew about it, had talked to him, wanted his advice on applying for it. “What was my frank opinion—as if I’d give any other kind—on his doctorate going through? Fair? Good? Excellent? It rather annoyed me, Norman; pushing me to some sort of commitment six months before he’d finished the disquisition. I told him it was the Board’s decision, not mine. He pressed me, not one to underestimate himself, you know. Asked if I would feel like backing him. I said that depended on the paper, and he said with his little sideways laugh, ‘It’s a good paper.’”
    I asked if he had seen any of it and he said, A few parts. “Essentially, trying to show that tadpoles will grow from eggs whose nucleus has been replaced by the nucleus of an adult frog’s skin cell. Fair enough, if he can do it. And somebody else doesn’t do it first.—How’s your wife?”
    Of course I said, Fine, and asked after Donna. It surprised me a little that he just nodded (though that was really adequate as response), stepped on his cigarette, said we must have lunch one day soon, he would call me (the ready-to-wear dismissal) and hurried off—a little testy, I thought, a little up-tight? Maybe not.
    The first I heard of Tuckwell’s trip to the Washington people was in a note from my old student. They liked him; rather more than like him, were impressed. Tuckwell had mentioned me, and X of course, but said he had come down on his own; hadn’t consulted anybody. Face-to-face was best, he said. They could see him, and also he could see them—good-natured about it, easy, but meaning it too. He wanted to know about housing and my friend drove him round in his neighborhood. Tuckwell said there would be three of them, one about two feet long if they hired him in the fall. Very pleasant guy; they liked him. The Foundation had come through very handsomely with a grant, as my friend put it, “to defray costs 1 Ph.D. in Anthropology”; they were meeting in a week or so to go through the applications and make a choice.
    My friend thought it would be a good idea if Tuckwell met “the Chief” (and “the Chief” met Tuckwell) but he was out of town until the next day. So Tuckwell spent the night, my friend put him up, Tuckwell phoning home to Meg, then phoning the lab and leaving word with Paula to tell Dr. X he would be absent the next morning but would be on hand early in the afternoon—confident, but conscientious too (and insisting on paying for the calls, nothing much, a dollar to