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Show 44 time I saw him he said they were trying to get his laboratory space away from him. There's some pretext like putting all the emeriti together in one building." "He won't stand for that." "He may have to." Evan leans forward across the table, serious now. "But he shouldn't have to. He's a well-known man, they can't just push him aside. Don't you think they owe him something?" "There's no point in being sentimental about it, even when it is your father. An old man is an old man; that's the way they'll look at it, so we might as well look at it that way too." "Did they ever talk to you about that 'responsible-ending' stuff?" asks Evan. "A couple of years ago," Roderick growls. "He was going to get cyanide from the lab, they were going to take it together. When they got old. I think he was even writing an article about it." "I didn't know about the article," says Evan. The waitress returns with the change: it is a pile of loose one-dollar bills. Roderick Robeck takes out his banker's wallet, places it on the table. He picks up the first dollar bill almost disdainfully, flattens it out, places the second one squarely across it, so that it is aligned perfectly with the first and the figures and faces are all pointing in the same direction; he does the same with the third and fourth bills. He puts the disciplined bills into his wallet, and places the wallet back in his pocket. Then he speaks: "I told them it was disgusting. I told them not to ever mention it again." |