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Show -99- Chapter Eight The next day, the Professor left early for the university in order to drop his wife off at the downtown bus depot. He told her he would telephone her later in the day to see if she wanted him to come down and pick her up after the department meeting. She thought she might have to stay longer with her sister? in which case he would drive back to Marin County, and they could make other plans later. No sooner had he left her off at the curb before the terminal and begun his drive up Market street toward Twin Peaks than he remembered he had forgotten to put in his partial lower plate before leaving home. He had come away without breakfast, thinking to get something in the cafetria at the student union, a foolish thing to have done in the first place in light of his diet? Now he would be limited to liquids, and liquids without sugar at that.1 Well, he thought?, he could probably get a bowl of soup to see him through the meeting; then either leave for home again or for the peninsula to pick up his wife. The cafeteria was unusually full when he got there - particularly the faculty section. Most departments had called special meetings, so there ias a buzz of talk coming from all the tables? a good deal of movement back and forth between the tables,1 none of the usual laughing or joking, but a kind of tense hum, like the sound of high powered electric lines. He edged into the line where soup was being dispensed, not |