“Not surprised,” said Carol. “Astounded.”
“Oop,” Maxwell told her, “has soaked up more education in the last twelve years than most ordinary men. Started out virtually in kindergarten and now is working on his doctorate. And the thing about it is that he intends to keep right on. He is, you might say, one of our most notable professional students.”
Oop raised his arm and waved it, bellowing at a waiter. “Over here,” he shouted. “There are people here who wish to patronize you. All dying of slow thirst.”
“The thing,” said Ghost, “I have always admired about him is his shy, retiring nature.”
“I keep on studying,” said Oop, “not so much that I hunger after knowledge as for the enjoyment I get from the incredulous astonishment on the faces of those stuffed-shirt professors and those goofy students. Not,” he said to Maxwell, “that I maintain all professors are stuffed shirts.”
“Thank you,” Maxwell said.
“There are those who seem to think,” said Oop, “that Homo sapiens neanderthalensis can be nothing other than a stupid brute. After all, he became extinct, he couldn’t hold his own-which in itself is prime evidence that he was very second-rate. I’m afraid that I’ll continue to devote my life to proving-”
The waiter appeared at Oop’s elbow. “It’s you again,” he said. “I might have known when you yelled at me. You have no breeding, Oop.”
“We have a man here,” Oop told him, ignoring the insult, “who has come back from the dead. I think it would be fitting that we should celebrate his resurrection with a flourish of good fellowship.”
“You want something to drink, I take it.”
“Why,” said Oop, “don’t you simply bring a bottle of good booze, a bucket ofice and four-no, three glasses. Ghost doesn’t drink, you know.”
“I know,” the waiter said.
“That is,” said Oop, “unless Miss Hampton wants one of these fancy drinks?”
“Who am I,” asked Carol, “to gum up the works? What is it you are drinking?”
“Bourbon,” said Oop. “Pete and I have a lousy taste in liquor.”
“Bourbon let it be,” said Carol.
“I take it,” said the waiter, “that when I lug the bottle over here, you’ll have the cash to pay for it. I remember the time-”
“Whatever I may lack,” said Oop, “will be forthcoming from Old Pete.”
“Pete?” the waiter glanced at Maxwell.
“Professor!” he exclaimed. “I had heard that you…”
“That’s what I been trying to tell you,” said Oop. “That’s what we’re celebrating. He came back from the dead.”
“But I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to,” said Oop. “Just rustle up the booze.”
The waiter scurried off.
“And now,” said Ghost to Maxwell, “please tell us what you are. You are no ghost, apparently, or if you are, there’s been a vast improvement in procedure since the man I represent shuffled off his mortal coil.”
“It seems,” Maxwell told them, “that I’m a split personality. One of me, I understand, got in an accident and died.”
“But that’s impossible,” said Carol. “Split personality in the mental sense-sure, that can be understood. But physically…”
“There’s nothing in heaven or earth,” said Ghost, “that is impossible.”
“That’s a bad quotation,” said Oop, “and, besides, you misquoted it.”
He put a hand to his hairy chest and scratched vigorously with blunt fingers.
“You needn’t look so horrified,” he said to Carol. “I itch. I’m a brute creature of nature, therefore I scratch. And I’m not naked, either. I have a pair of shorts on.”
“He’s housebroken,” said Maxwell, “but just barely.”
“To get back to this split personality,” said the girl, “can you tell us what actually did happen?”
“I set out for one of the Coonskin planets,” said Maxwell, “and along the way somehow my wave pattern duplicated itself and I wound up in two places.”
“You mean there were two Pete Maxwells?”
“That’s the way of it.”
“If I were you,” said Oop, “I’d sue them. These Transportation people get away with murder. You could shake them down for plenty. Me and Ghost could testify for you. We went to your funeral.
“As a matter of fact,” he said, “I think Ghost and I should sue as well. For mental anguish. Our best friend cold and rigid in his casket and us prostrate with grief.”
“We really were, you know,” said Ghost.
“I have no doubt of it,” said Maxwell.
“I must say,” said Carol, “that all three of you take it rather lightly. Here one good friend of three-”
“What do you want of us?” demanded Oop. “Sing hallelujahs, perhaps? Or bug out our eyes and be filled with the wonder of it? We lost a pal and now he’s back again and-”
“But one of him is dead!”
“Well,” said Oop, “as far as we were concerned, there was never more than one of him. And maybe this is better. Imagine the embarrassing situations that could develop if there were two of him.”
Carol turned to Maxwell. “And you?” she asked.
He shook his head. “In a day or two, I’ll take some serious thought of it. Right now, I guess, I’m putting off thinking about it. To tell you the truth, when I do think about it, I get a little numb. But tonight a pretty girl and two old friends and a great big pussy cat and a bottle of liquor to get rid of and later on some food.”
He grinned at her. She shrugged.
“I never saw such a crazy bunch,” she said. “I believe I like it.”
“I like it, too,” said Oop. “Say whatever you will of it, this civilization of yours is a vast improvement over the days of yore. It was the luckiest day of my life when a Time team snatched me hence just at the point when some of my loving brother tribesmen were about to make a meal of me. Not that I blame them particularly, you understand. It had been a long, hard winter and the snow was deep and the game had been very scarce. And there were certain members of the tribe who felt they had a score or two to settle with me-and I’ll not kid you; they may have had a score. I was about to be knocked upon the head and, so to speak, dumped into the pot.”
“Cannibalism!” Carol said, horrified.
“Why, naturally,” he told her. “In those rough and ready days, it was quite acceptable. But, of course, you wouldn’t understand. You’ve never been really hungry, I take it. Gut hungry. So shriveled up with hunger-”
He halted his talk and looked around.
“The thing that is most comforting about this culture,” he declared, “is the abundance of the food. Back in the old days we had our ups and downs. We’d bag a mastodon and we’d eat until we vomited and then we’d eat some more and-”
“I doubt,” Ghost said warningly, “that this is a proper subject for dinner conversation.”
Oop glanced at Carol.
“You must say this much for me,” he insisted. “I’m honest. When I mean vomit, I say vomit and not regurgitate.”
The waiter brought the liquor, thumping the bottle and the ice bucket down upon the table.
“You want to order now?” he asked.
“We ain’t decided yet,” said Oop, “if we’re going to eat in this crummy joint. It’s all right to get liquored up in, but-”
“Then, sir,” the waiter said, and laid down the check.
Oop dug into his pockets and came up with cash. Maxwell pulled the bucket and the bottle close and began fixing drinks.
“We’re going to eat here, aren’t we?” asked Carol. “If Sylvester doesn’t get that steak you promised him, I don’t know what will happen. He’s been so patient and so good, with the smell of all the food…”
“He’s already had one steak,” Maxwell pointed out. “How much can he eat?”
“An unlimited amount,” said Oop. “In the old days one of them monsters would polish off an elk in a single sitting. Did I ever tell you-”
“I am sure you have,” said Ghost.