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Show -103- The room was a long, sloping lecture hall, with entrances front and rear. The Professor, out of habit, took the rear door and a seat only a few rows down on the aisle, where he could escape without too much notice if the need arose. He was under no illusion that his frequent escapes from dull, routine meetings had gone unattended. He had one day overheard one of his colleagues talking in the hallway. "Some members of this department think we should have no meetings." He had no doubt that this was a reference to himself, somewhat overstated? because of his many objections to meetings called? he thought, unnecessarily. He did not think that about the present meeting, but the old habit of crot&hetiness persisted. "Let's get on with It," he wanted to say to someone. He could not avoid the feeling that the meeting was a substitute for something better that might be getting done? His own writing?' for one thing. Below him? at the end of the almost full rows of seats, the Chairman was 3Ja conversation with two of his colleagues, one of whom was his friend and former student. They were joined by a fourth person, a small yellow man who was a linguist and a second generation Korean - a puzzling person to the Professor? who had met him briefly at a party in the Midwest fifteen years before. Despite that fact, and the fact that they had been colleagues for the last ten years, he felt |
