Tales of the Black Widowers

"What's this?" said Rubin suddenly, staring down at his dish in dismay.
"Pвtй de la maison, sir," said Henry softly.
"That's what I thought. Chopped liver. Damn it, Henry, I ask you, as a pathologically honest man, is this fit to eat?"
"The matter is quite subjective, sir. It depends on the personal taste of the diner."
Avalon pounded the table. "Point of order! I object to Manny's use of the adjectival phrase 'pathologically honest.' Violation of confidence!"
Rubin colored slightly. "Hold on, Jeff. I don't violate any confidence. That happens to be my opinion of Henry quite independently of what happened last month."
"Ruling from the chair," said Avalon stubbornly.
Trumbull said, "Shut up both of you. It is the ruling of the chair that Henry may be recognized by all Black Widowers as that rare phenomenon, a completey honest man. No reason need be given. It can be taken as a matter of common knowledge."
Henry smiled gently. "Shall I take away the pate, sir?"
"Would you eat it, Henry?" asked Rubin.
"With pleasure, sir."
"Then I'll eat it, too." And he did so, with every sign of barely controlled nausea.
Trumbull leaned over to Drake and said in a voice that was low for him, "What the hell's bothering you?"
Drake started slightly and said, "Nothing. What's bothering you?"
"You are," said Trumbull. "I've never seen a roll taken apart into so many pieces in my life."
The conversation grew general after that, centering chiefly on Rubin's aggrieved contention that honesty lacked survival value and that all the forces of natural selection combined to eliminate it as a human trait. He did well defending his thesis till Gonzalo asked him if he attributed his own success as a writer ("such as it is," said Gonzalo) to plagiarism. When Rubin met the point head on and tried to prove, by close reasoning, that plagiarism was fundamentally different from other forms of dishonesty and might be treated independently, he was hooted down.
Then, between main course and dessert, Drake left for the men's room and Trumbull followed him.
Trumbull said, "Do you know this guy Stacey, Jim?"
Drake shook his head. "No. Not at all."
"Well, what's wrong, then? I admit you're not an animated phonograph needle like Rubin but you haven't said a word all dinner, damn it. And you keep looking at Stacey."
Drake said, "Do me a favor, Tom. Let me question him after dinner."
Trumbull shrugged. "Sure."
Over the coffee, Trumbull said, "The time has come for the grilling of the guest. Under ordinary circumstances, I, as the possessor of the only logical mind at the table, would begin. On this occasion, I pass to Doctor Doctor Drake since he 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, FA-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 II 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 would keep his draft exemption going; we figured his father would help out there-"
"Were the rest of you jealous of him?" asked Rubin. "Because that kind of guy-"
"We weren't jealous of him," said Drake. "Sure, we envied the situation. Hell, those were the days before government grants fell about us like snowflakes. Every college semester, I lived a suspense story called 'Do I Dig Up the Tuition Or Do I Drop Out?' All of us would have liked to be rich. But Lance was a likable guy. He didn't parade the situation and would lend us a few bucks when we were in a hole and do it unostentatiously. And he was perfectly willing to admit he wasn't a brain,
"We even helped him. Gus Blue tutored him in physical organic-for a fee. Of course, he wasn't always scrupulous. There was one preparation he was supposed to have synthesized in lab, and we knew that he bought a sample at a chemical supply house and turned it in as his own. At least, we were pretty sure he did, but it didn't bother us."
Rubin said, "Why not? That was dishonest, wasn't it?"