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Show -237- attenpting to guess xrhat each package contained. The Professor took his usual seat with the homemade ashtray beside i t . Bis Son-in-laxr asked him if he cared for a drink. "Not yet," the Professor told him. The dog got up and came over to his chair. Perhaps recalling the many times the Professor had petted him, the dog looked pleadingly a t him. The Professor rubbed the fur of the dog's neck. When he stopped, the shepherd nudged his hand xrith his long nose. The Professor gave him a final pat. "That's a l l , " he told the dog, and the dog gave him one last lingering look, then turned and s e t t l e d again in the corner. This dog, highly bred, had succeeded the Professor's dog as his daughter's pet. When his daughter f i r s t came to California xrith her family, they had lived in an apartment that did not alloxr animals. The Professor had taken their dog, half thinking he would have to give i t back when they moved. He and his wife had grown fond of her- Their daughter had noticed, and when she moved out of the apartment, she bought this black shepherd as a puppy from a kennel in Sacramento. His daughter came into the room just then and asked her older daughter to put on the recording of Christmas carols. "Oh, yeah!" the grandaughter responded, as though she had intended to do t h i s e a r l i e r , but had forgotten. "We're going to eat early," the Professor's daughter told him. "Our guests are invited l a t e r for dessert. If you vant your dink, you'd better have i t now." A |