Puzzles of the Black Widowers - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,32

our doings here puzzle you, I must explain that it is customary for the Black Widowers to debate furiously over trifles."

Dunhill was a tall man with a thick head of white hair and eyebrows of a startling and bushy black. He said, in a booming bass voice, "We can survive catastrophes. It's the trifles that kill us."

Gonzalo looked startled and seemed about to say something, but Henry announced, with quiet finality, "Gentlemen, dinner is served."

Rubin did well with the ham and pea soup, and wreaked havoc on the broiled sole, and on the rather plain salad. He drew up short, however, at the individual pies handed out in all the pride of their crisp, golden crust.

"Henry," said Rubin in a slow rumble, "what exists under this crust?"

Henry said, "I fear, Mr. Rubin, that Mr. Avalon, in a British mood, has asked that we serve steak and kidney pie."

"Kidney? Kidney?" Rubin looked outraged. "That's liver squared. Jeff, I wouldn't have thought you capable of such a lapse in taste."

Avalon looked pained. He said, "Steak and kidney pie, properly prepared, is a great delicacy - "

"For whom? Vultures?"

"For every one of us at this table. Why don't you try it, Manny?"

Rubin said intransigently. "Kidney tastes like urine." Gonzalo said, "So does your favorite brand of beer, Manny, but you guzzle it down."

"For God's sake," said Trumbull, "what kind of dinner conversation is this? Manny, if you can't eat what's set before you, then I'm sure Henry can get you scrambled eggs."

Rubin sneered and said, "I'll eat the steak," and sat sulkily through the main course, the treacle tart, the sardine-on-toast savory, and the strong tea. It made for a quiet dinner and, as Gonzalo pointed out in dumb show, Rubin did manage to eat the entire pie, kidney included.

Eventually, Avalon rang his spoon against the water glass and said, "Gentlemen, I call on Mario to grill our honored guest, my good friend, Chester Dunhill. I've explained the rules of the game to him and he is quite prepared to answer truthfully and completely."

Gonzalo said, "Mr. Dunhill, how do you justify your existence?"

Dunhill blinked, then said, "Well, I try to keep the past alive for the general public. Considering that we can't possibly order the present intelligently unless we learn the lessons of the past, I think I earn my place on Earth."

Gonzalo said, "How do you keep the past alive?"

"By writing about it. I suppose I could call myself a historian for the layman."

"Can you make a living from that?" asked Gonzalo.

Halsted put in at once, "Will Durant did, and Barbara Tuchman still does."

Dunhill smiled, with an air of diffidence that did not sit comfortably upon him. "I don't exactly put myself in their class. Still, I do make a living."

Avalon cleared his throat with vehemence. "May I interrupt? My friend, Charles, is being needlessly modest. In addition to his histories, he also writes historical novels for teenagers, mostly set in the Greece of the Peloponnesian War and the Rome of the Second Punic War. These are both critical and popular successes."

Gonzalo said, "Why those periods in particular, Mr. Dunhill?"

Dunhill said, "Both were periods of epic conflict between two nearly equally matched powers: Athens and Sparta in one case; Rome and Carthage in the other. Both wars are well documented; both were filled with great battles, with dramatic triumphs and disasters, with generals and politicians, some brilliant and some idiotic. Both periods, in short, are dead ringers for the period we're living in now. We can understand, sympathize, and see the lessons I try to make plain. What's more, we can't even draw an overall conclusion, because in one case the adversary we admire won out over the other, Rome defeating Carthage. In the other, the adversary we admire lost, Athens succumbing to Sparta. Of course, I've always had a personal soft spot in my heart for the Carthaginian general, Hannibal. He's one of three great generals in history who ended a loser without that in the least tarnishing his reputation."

Rubin said, "Napoleon was a second. Who was the third?"

"Robert E. Lee, of course," said Dunhill, his voice booming again.

Rubin looked discomfited but recovered and said, "I thought you were going to say Charles XII of Sweden, and that would have been wrong."

"That's right," said Dunhill, "it would have been wrong. Charles XII lacked prudence."

"How about generals who never lost?" asked Drake.

"There are quite a few of them," said Dunhill. "Genghis Khan, Cromwell, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, the Duke of