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

you. When he was doing graduate work, he had his lab outfitted with a cork floor at his own expense."

"Why a cork floor?" Gonzalo wanted to know.

"If you'd ever dropped a beaker on a tile floor, you wouldn't ask," said Drake. "He majored in chemistry as an undergraduate because he had to major in something and then he went on to do graduate work in the same field because World War II was on in Europe, the draft was beginning-it was 1940-and graduate work in chemistry would look good to the draft board. And it did; he never got into the Army as far as I know. But that was perfectly legitimate; I never got into uniform, either, and I point no fingers."

Avalon, who had been an army officer, looked austere, but said, "Perfectly legitimate."

Drake said, "He wasn't serious about it-about chemistry, I mean. He had no natural aptitude for it and he never worked, particularly. He was satisfied to get no more than a B minus and it was about all he was good for. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, and it was good enough to sweat out a master's degree for himself-which doesn't amount to much in chemistry. The grades weren't good enough to qualify him for research toward the doctorate, however.

"That was the whole point. We all-the rest of us who were in graduate chemistry that year-assumed he would only go as far as the master's. Then he'd get some sort of job that would keep his draft exemption going; we figured his father would help out there-"

"Were the rest of you jealous of him?" asked Rubin. "Because that kind of guy-"

"We weren't jealous of him," said Drake. "Sure, we envied the situation. Hell, those were the days before government grants fell about us like snowflakes. Every college semester, I lived a suspense story called 'Do I Dig Up the Tuition Or Do I Drop Out?' All of us would have liked to be rich. But Lance was a likable guy. He didn't parade the situation and would lend us a few bucks when we were in a hole and do it unostentatiously. And he was perfectly willing to admit he wasn't a brain,

"We even helped him. Gus Blue tutored him in physical organic-for a fee. Of course, he wasn't always scrupulous. There was one preparation he was supposed to have synthesized in lab, and we knew that he bought a sample at a chemical supply house and turned it in as his own. At least, we were pretty sure he did, but it didn't bother us."

Rubin said, "Why not? That was dishonest, wasn't it?"

"Because it wouldn't do him any good," said Drake in annoyance. "It just meant another B minus at best. But the reason I bring it up is that we all knew he was capable of cheating."

"You mean the rest of you wouldn't have?" interposed Stacey. There was a touch of cynicism in his voice.

Drake lifted his eyebrows, then dropped them again. "I wouldn't guarantee any of us if we were really pushed. The point is, we weren't. We all had a fighting chance to get through without the risk of cheating, and none of us did. As far as I know. Certainly, I didn't.

"But then there came a time when Lance made up his mind to go on for his Ph.D. It was at a smoker. The war jobs were just beginning to open up and there were a few recruiters on campus. It meant money and complete security from the draft, but Ph.D.'s meant a lot to us and there was some question as to whether we'd come back to school once we got away from class for any reason.

"Someone (not I) said he wished he were in Lance's shoes. Lance had no choice to make. He would take the job.

" 'I don't know,' said Lance, maybe just to be contrary. 'I think I'll stay right here and go on for the Ph.D.'

"He may have been joking. I'm sure he was joking. Anyway, we all thought he was, and we laughed. But we were all a little high and it became one of those laughs without reason, you know. If one of us started to die down, he would catch someone else's eyes and start off again. It wasn't that funny. It wasn't funny at all. But we laughed till we were half suffocated. And Lance turned red, and then white.

"I remember I tried to say, 'Lance, we're not laughing at