sign of any window, and the clear presence of circulating air did not spare him a claustrophobic sensation.
He found himself moving closer to Davenport, who seemed insensible to the unpleasantness of the situation.
Davenport said in a low voice, 'He'll be here in a moment, sir.'
'Is it always like this?' asked Ashley.
'Always. He never leaves this place, as far as I know, except to trot across the campus and attend his classes.'
'Gentlemen! Gentlemen!' came a reedy, tenor voice. 'I am so glad to see you. It is good of you to come.'
A round figure of a man bustled in from another room, shedding shadow and emerging into the light.
He beamed at them, adjusting round, thick-lensed glasses upward so that he might look through them. As his fingers moved away, the glasses slipped downward at once to a precarious perch upon the round nubbin of his snub nose. 'I am Wendell Urth,' he said.
The scraggly gray Van Dyke on his pudgy, round chin did not in the least add to the dignity which the smiling face and the stubby ellipsoidal torso so noticeably lacked.
'Gentlemen! It is good of you to come,' Urth repeated, as he jerked himself backward into a chair from which his legs dangled with the toes of his shoes a full inch above the floor. 'Mr. Davenport remembers, perhaps, that it is a matter of-uh-some importance to me to remain here. I do not like to travel, except to walk, of course, and a walk across the campus is quite enough for me.'
Ashley looked baffled as he remained standing, and Urth stared at him with a growing bafflement of his own. He pulled a handkerchief out and wiped his glasses, then replaced them, and said, 'Oh, I see the difficulty. You want chairs. Yes. Well, just take some. If there are things on them, just push them off.
Push them off. Sit down, please.'
Davenport removed the books from one chair and placed them carefully on the floor. He pushed the chair toward Ashley. Then he took a human skull off a second chair and placed the skull even more carefully on Urth's desk. Its mandible, insecurely wired, unhinged as he transferred it, and it sat there with jaw askew.
'Never mind,' said Urth, affably, 'it will not hurt. Now tell me what is on your mind, gentlemen?' Davenport waited a moment for Ashley to speak, then, rather gladly, took over. 'Dr. Urth, do you remember a student of yours named Jennings? Karl Jennings?'
Urth's smile vanished momentarily with the effort of recall. His somewhat protuberant eyes blinked. 'No,' he said at last. 'Not at the moment.'
'A geology major. He took your extraterrology course some years ago. I have his photograph here, if that will help.'
Urth studied the photograph handed him with nearsighted concentration, but still looked doubtful. Davenport drove on. 'He left a cryptic message which is the key to a matter of great importance. We have so far failed to interpret it satisfactorily, but this much we see-it indicates we are to come to you.'
'Indeed? How interesting! For what purpose are you to come to me?'
'Presumably for your advice on interpreting the message.'
'May I see it?'
Silently Ashely passed the slip of paper to Wendell Urth. The extraterrologist looked at it casually, turned it over, and stared for a moment at the blank back. He said, 'Where does it say to ask me?'
Ashley looked startled, but Davenport forestalled him by saying, The arrow pointing to the symbol of the Earth. It seems clear.'
'It is clearly an arrow pointing to the symbol for the planet Earth. I suppose it might literally mean "go to the Earth" if this were found on some other world.'
'It was found on the Moon, Dr. Urth, and it could, I sup pose mean that. However, the reference to you seemed clear once we realized that Jennings had been a student of yours.'
'He took a course in extraterrology here at the University?' That's right.'
'In what year, Mr. Davenport?'
'In '18.'
'Ah. The puzzle is solved.'
'You mean the significance of the message?' said Davenport.
'No, no. The message has no meaning to me. I mean the puzzle of why it is that I did not remember him, for I remember him now. He was a very quiet fellow, anxious, shy, self-effacing-not at all the sort of person anyone would remember. Without this'-and he tapped the message-'I might never have remembered him.'
'Why does the card change things?' asked Davenport.
The reference to me is a play on words. Earth-Urth. Not very subtle, of course, but