Puzzles of the Black Widowers - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,10

he referred to aluminum chloride, which is used as a catalyst in the Friedel-Crafts reaction, he referred to it as 'aluminium' chloride, with the accent on the third syllable and the first u as 'yoo' instead of 'oo.' It was just the British pronunciation, after all, but Youngerlea chewed him out. He denounced all this crap - his expression - of having an unnecessary extra syllable, five instead of four, and so on, and the stupidity of making any chemical name longer than necessary, and so on. It was nothing and yet he humiliated the poor man, who didn't dare say a word in his own defense. And all the damned sycophants in the class laughed."

"So what makes you worse than the rest?"

Horace flushed, but there was a note of pride in his voice as he replied. "I answer back. When he starts on me, I don't just sit there and take it. In fact, I interrupted him in this aluminum-aluminium business. I said in a good, loud voice, 'The name of an element is a human convention, professor, and not a law of nature.' That stopped him, but he did say in his sneering way, 'Ah, Rubin, been dropping any beakers lately?' "

"And the class laughed, I suppose?" said Halsted.

"Sure they did, the pimple-heads. I dropped one beaker all course. One! And that was only because someone jostled me. - And then, once, I came across Youngerlea in the chem library looking up some compound in Beilstein - "

Gonzalo asked, "What's Beilstein?"

"It's a reference book of about seventy-five volumes, listing many thousands of organic compounds, with references to the work done on each, all of them listed in order according to some logical but very complicated system. Youngerlea had a couple of volumes on his desk and was leafing through first one, then the other. I was curious, and asked him what compound he was searching for. He told me and I was overcome with ecstasy when I realized he was looking in the wrong volumes altogether. I moved quietly to the Beilstein shelves, took down a volume, found the compound Youngerlea wanted - it took me thirty seconds - came back to his table, and put the volume in front of him, open to the correct page."

"I suppose he didn't thank you," said Drake.

"No, he didn't," said Horace, "but at that, he might have if I didn't have the world's biggest grin on my face. At the moment, though, I would rather have had my revenge than my Ph.D. - And that may be the way it will work out."

Rubin said, "I've never considered you the most tactful person in the world, Horace."

"No, Uncle Manny," said Horace sadly, "my mother says I take after you - but she only says that when she's really annoyed with me."

Even Avalon laughed at that, and Rubin muttered something under his breath.

Gonzalo said, "Well, what can he do to you? If your marks are all right, and your research is all right, and you do all right on the exam, they've got to pass you."

"It's not that easy, sir," said Horace. "In the first place, it's an oral exam and the pressures are intense. A guy like Youngerlea is a past master at intensifying the pressure, and he can just possibly reduce me to incoherence, or get me into a furious slanging match with him. Either way he can maintain I don't have the emotional stability to make a good chemist. He's a powerful figure in the department and he might swing the committee. Even if I pass and get my degree, he has enough influence in chemical circles to blackball me in some very important places."

There was silence around the table.

Drake said, "What are you going to do?"

"Well ... I tried to make peace with the old bastard. I thought about it and thought about it, and finally asked for an appointment so that I could eat a little crow. I said I knew we had not gotten along, but that I hoped he didn't think I would make a bad chemist - that really, chemistry was my life - well, you know what I mean."

Drake nodded. "What did he say?"

"He enjoyed himself. He had me where he wanted me. He did his best to make me crawl; told me I was a wise guy with an ungovernable temper, and a few other things designed to make me go out of control. I held on, though, and said, 'But, granted