“But don’t you see—” Emily’s voice shook. “No. Of course not. You wouldn’t see. You’re just a man—no, not even a man. You’re just Professor Wolf. You’re Woof-woof.”
Wolf staggered. “I’m what?”
“Woof-woof. That’s what everybody calls you because your name’s Wolfe Wolf. All your students, everybody. But you wouldn’t notice a thing like that. Oh, no. Woof-woof, that’s what you are.”
“This,” said Wolfe Wolf, “is the crowning blow. My heart is breaking, my world is shattered, I’ve got to walk a mile from the campus to find a bar; but all this isn’t enough. I’ve got to be called Woof-woof. Goodbye!”
He turned, and in the doorway caromed into a vast and yielding bulk, which gave out with a noise that might have been either a greeting of “Wolf!” or more probably an inevitable grunt of “Oof!”
Wolf backed into the room and admitted Professor Fearing, paunch, pince-nez, cane, and all. The older man waddled over to his desk, plumped himself down, and exhaled a long breath. “My dear boy,” he gasped. “Such impetuosity.”
“Sorry, Oscar.”
“Ah, youth—” Professor Fearing fumbled about for a handkerchief, found none, and proceeded to polish his pince-nez on his somewhat stringy necktie. “But why such haste to depart? And why is Emily crying?”
“Is she?”
“You see?” said Emily hopelessly, and muttered “Woof-woof” into her damp handkerchief.
“And why do copies of the JEGP fly about my head as I harmlessly cross the campus? Do we have teleportation on our hands?”
“Sorry,” Wolf repeated curtly. “Temper. Couldn’t stand that ridiculous argument of Glocke’s. Goodbye.”
“One moment.” Professor Fearing fished into one of his unnumbered handkerchiefless pockets and produced a sheet of yellow paper. “I believe this is yours?”
Wolf snatched at it and quickly converted it into confetti.
Fearing chuckled. “How well I remember when Gloria was a student here! I was thinking of it only last night when I saw her in Moonbeams and Melody. How she did upset this whole department! Heavens, my boy, if I’d been a younger man myself—”
“I’m going. You’ll see about Herbrecht, Emily?”
Emily sniffled and nodded.
“Come, Wolfe.” Fearing’s voice had grown more serious. “I didn’t mean to plague you. But you mustn’t take these things too hard. There are better ways of finding consolation than in losing your temper or getting drunk.”
“Who said anything about—”
“Did you need to say it? No, my boy, if you were to— You’re not a religious man, are you?”
“Good God, no,” said Wolf contradictorily.
“If only you were…If I might make a suggestion, Wolfe, why don’t you come over to the temple tonight? We’re having very special services. They might take your mind off Glo—off your troubles.”
“Thanks, no. I’ve always meant to visit your temple—I’ve heard the damnedest rumors about it—but not tonight. Some other time.”
“Tonight would be especially interesting.”
“Why? What’s so special of a feast day about April thirtieth?”
Fearing shook his gray head. “It is shocking how ignorant a scholar can be outside of his chosen field…But you know the place, Wolfe; I’ll hope to see you there tonight.”
“Thanks. But my troubles don’t need any supernatural solutions. A couple of zombies will do nicely, and I do not mean serviceable stiffs. Goodbye, Oscar.” He was halfway through the door before he added as an afterthought, “’Bye, Emily.”
“Such rashness,” Fearing murmured. “Such impetuosity. Youth is a wonderful thing to enjoy, is it not, Emily?”
Emily said nothing, but plunged into typing the proposed budget as though all the fiends of hell were after her, as indeed many of them were.
The sun was setting, and Wolf’s tragic account of his troubles had laid an egg, too. The bartender had polished every glass in the joint and still the repetitive tale kept pouring forth. He was torn between a boredom new even in his experience and a professional admiration for a customer who could consume zombies indefinitely.
“Did I tell you about the time she flunked the midterm?” Wolf demanded truculently.
“Only three times,” said the bartender.
“All right, then; I’ll tell you. Yunnerstand, I don’t do things like this. Profeshical ethons, that’s what’s I’ve got. But this was different. This wasn’t like somebody that doesn’t know just because she doesn’t know; this was a girl that didn’t know because she wasn’t the kind of girl that has to know the kind of things a girl has to know if she’s the kind of girl that ought to know that kind of things. Yunnerstand?”
The bartender cast a calculating glance at the plump little man who sat alone at the end of the deserted bar, carefully nursing his gin-and-tonic.
“She made me see that. She made me see lossa things and I can still see the things she made me see the things. It wasn’t just like a professor falls for a coed, yunnerstand? This was different. This was wunnaful. This was like a whole new life, like.”
The bartender sidled down to the end of the bar. “Brother,” he whispered softly. The little man with the odd beard looked up from his gin-and-tonic. “Yes, colleague?”
“I listen to that potted professor another five minutes, I’m going to start smashing up the joint. How’s about slipping down there and standing in for me, huh?”
The little man looked Wolf over and fixed his gaze especially on the hand that clenched the tall zombie glass. “Gladly, colleague.” He nodded.
The bartender sighed a gust of relief.
“She was Youth,” Wolf was saying intently to where the bartender had stood. “But it wasn’t just that. This was different. She was Life and Excitement and Joy and Ecstasy and stuff. Yunner—” He broke off and stared at the empty space. “Uh-mazing!” he observed. “Right before my very eyes. Uh-mazing!”
“You were saying, colleague?” the plump little man prompted from the adjacent stool.
Wolf turned. “So there you are. Did I tell you about the time I went to her house to check her term paper?”
“No. But I have a feeling you will.”
“Howja know? Well, this night—”
The little man drank slowly; but his glass was empty by the time Wolf had finished the account of an evening of pointlessly tentative flirtation. Other customers were drifting in, and the bar was now about a third full.
“—and ever since then—” Wolf broke off sharply. “That isn’t you,” he objected.
“I think it is, colleague.”
“But you’re a bartender and you aren’t a bartender.”
“No. I’m a magician.”
“Oh. That explains it. Now, like I was telling you— Hey! Your bald is beard.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your bald is beard. Just like your head. It’s all jussa fringe running around.”
“I like it that way.”
“And your glass is empty.”
“That’s all right too.”
“Oh, no it isn’t. It isn’t every night you get to drink with a man that proposed to Gloria Garton and got turned down. This is an occasion for celebration.” Wolf thumped loudly on the bar and held up his first two fingers.
The little man regarded their equal length. “No,” he said softly. “I think I’d better not. I know my capacity. If I have another—well, things might start happening.”
“Lettemappen!”
“No. Please, colleague. I’d rather—”
The bartender brought the drinks. “Go on, brother,” he whispered. “Keep him quiet. I’ll do you a favor sometime.”
Reluctantly the little man sipped at his fresh gin-and-tonic.
The professor took a gulp of his nth zombie. “My name’s Woof-woof,” he proclaimed. “Lots of people call me Wolfe Wolf. They think that’s funny. But it’s really Woof-woof. Wazoors?”