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Show -229- to their friends homes and not inviting others to their oxm. Both daughters invited friends In to share in the distribution of gifts on Christmas Eve, and t h i s year his younger daughter had invited txro 4MriNttaM actor couples from the theater to share the evening with them. These reminiscences brought the Professor again to the awareness that he had not yet bought his wife's present. He tried to recall if there had been any hints from her of something she needed. He could think of none. He t r i ed to imagine something she d i d n ' t have that he xrould like her to oxm, and again his mind xas blank. He xrould have to do, as he so often had done in the past, simply go to one of the larger stores and shop about u n t i l he found something that he thought she might appreciate. By noxr The Professor xas wide axake. He t r i ed again for a moment or two to r e c a l l the b r i l l i a n t idea for his book that he had had in his dream. Any l i t t l e hint xrould have helped him now, but he could recover nothing. He got quietly out of bed, put on his robe and slippers (he had got into the habit in recent years of sleeping with nothing on), made his xay into his wife's bathroom, where he Hwar-tete awaaaiag lead* wished his hands and face and combed his hair, then continued on into the kitchen, where he made a pot of coffee in their electric percolator. While the coffee xas perking, he collected the morning paper from where i t had been thrown onto the patio and carried i t into the dining room, scanning the headlines before he put i t down on the t a b l e . The trouble a t the University had made tfrT f r o a r page-again, he saxr, but he didn't read about it |