books and papers, oblivious, as usual, to anything that had happened
since the Battle of Bosworth or the Fall of Constantinople. Chalmers
stepped quickly out of his way and entered behind him. Marjorie
Fenner, the secretary they also shared, was tidying up the old man's
desk.

"Good morning, Doctor Chalmers." She looked at him keenly for a
moment. "They give you a bad time again in Modern Four?"

Good Lord, did he show it that plainly? In any case, it was no use
trying to kid Marjorie. She'd hear the whole story before the end of
the day.

"Gave myself a bad time."

Marjorie, still fussing with Pottgeiter's desk, was about to say
something in reply. Instead, she exclaimed in exasperation.

"Ohhh! That man! He's forgotten his notes again!" She gathered some
papers from Pottgeiter's desk, rushing across the room and out the
door with them.

For a while, he sat motionless, the books and notes for General
European History II untouched in front of him. This was going to raise
hell. It hadn't been the first slip he'd made, either; that thought
kept recurring to him. There had been the time when he had alluded to
the colonies on Mars and Venus. There had been the time he'd mentioned
the secession of Canada from the British Commonwealth, and the time
he'd called the U. N. the Terran Federation. And the time he'd tried
to get a copy of Franchard's _Rise and Decline of the System States_,