boucher book oct28.pdf - Index of

The Compleat Werewolf 15
The Compleat Werewolf
The professor glanced at the note:
Don’t be silly— Gloria.
Wolfe Wolf crumpled the sheet of paper into a yellow ball and hurled it out the
window into the sunshine of the bright campus spring. He made several choice and
profane remarks in fluent Middle High German.
Emily looked up from typing the proposed budget for the departmental library.
“I’m afraid I didn’t understand that, Professor Wolf. I’m weak on Middle High.”
“Just improvising,” said Wolf, and sent a copy of the Journal of English and
Germanic Philology to follow the telegram.
Emily rose from the typewriter. “There’s something the matter. Did the committee
reject your monograph on Hager?”
“That monumental contribution to human knowledge? Oh, no. Nothing so
important as that.”
“But you’re so upset—”
“The office wife!” Wolf snorted. “And pretty damned polyandrous at that, with
the whole department on your hands. Go away.”
Emily’s dark little face lit up with a flame of righteous anger that removed any
trace of plainness. “Don’t talk to me like that, Mr. Wolf. I’m simply trying to help
you. And it isn’t the whole department. It’s—”
Professor Wolf picked up an inkwell, looked after the telegram and the Journal, then
set the glass pot down again. “No. There are better ways of going to pieces. Sorrows
drown easier than they smash. Get Herbrecht to take my two-o’clock, will you?”
“Where are you going?”
“To hell in sectors. So long.”
“Wait. Maybe I can help you. Remember when the dean jumped you for serving
drinks to students? Maybe I can—”
Wolf stood in the doorway and extended one arm impressively, pointing with
that curious index which was as long as the middle finger. “Madam, academically
you are indispensable. You are the prop and stay of the existence of this department.
But at the moment this department can go to hell, where it will doubtless continue
to need your invaluable services.”
15