The Best of L. Sprague de Camp

He looked hard at Lengyel, though Herb, who would like to have punched his handsome face, was merely a sober and serious student instead of a rah-rah boy. Fitzgerald went on:

"Who wants the lotas to be a haven for all the campus freaks? Next thing you'll find a thing like a bug, a praying mantis a couple of meters high sitting in your chair, and you'll be told that's the new pledge from Mars—"

"Ridiculous!" interrupted Lengyel. "Martians can't stand Earthly gravity and humidity for long—"

"That's not the point. I was speaking generally, and for my money a young dinosaur's not much improvement on a Martian—"

"Another thing," said Lengyel. "have an antidiscrimination clause in our charter. So we can't bar this man—his student, I should say—"

"Oh yes we can," said Fitzgerald, stifling a yawn. "That refers only to the races of mankind; it don't apply to nonhuman beings. We're still a club of gentlemen-get that, gentle-men—and Hithafea sure ain't no man."

"Principle's the same," said Lengyel. "Why d'you think Atlantic's one of the few universities left with fraternities? Because the frats here have upheld the democratic tradition and avoided snobbery and discrimination. Now—"

"Nuts!" said Fitzgerald. "It isn't discriminatory to pick folks you think will be congenial. It wouldn't be so bad if Herb had merely proposed some guy from Krishna, where they look more or less human—"

"There aren't any Krishnans at Atlantic this year," muttered Lengyel.

"—but no, he has to foist a shuddery scaly reptile—"

"John's got a phobia against snakes," said Lengyel.

"So does every normal person—"

"Nuts to you, Brother Fitzgerald. It's merely a neurosis, implanted by—"

"You're both getting away from the subject," said Brother Brown, president of the chapter.

They went on like that for some time until a vote was called for. Since Fitzgerald blackballed Hithafea, Lengyel blackballed Fitzgerald's young brother.

"Hey!" cried Fitzgerald. "You can't do that!"

"Says who?" said Lengyel. "I just don't like the young lout."

After further wrangling, each withdrew his veto against the other's protégé.

On his way out, Fitzgerald punched Lengyel in the solar plexus with a thumb the size of a broomstick end and said: "You're taking Alice to the game tomorrow for me, see? And be sure you give her back in the same condition as you got her!"

"Okay, Stinker," said Lengyel, and went to his room to study. Although they did not like each other, they managed to get along. Lengyel secretly admired Fitzgerald for being the perfect movie idea of Joe College, while Fitzgerald secretly envied Lengyel's brains. It amused Fitzgerald to turn over his coed to Lengyel because he regarded Herb as a harmless gloop who wouldn't dare try to make time with her himself.

Next day, the last Saturday of the 2054 football season, Atlantic played Yale on the home field. Herb Lengyel led Alice Holm into the stands. As usual, when he got near her his tongue got glued to the roof of his mouth. So he studied the pink card he found thumb-tacked to the back of the bleacher seat in front of him. On this were listed, by number, the things he was supposed to do with a big square of cardboard, orange on one side and black on the other, when the cheerleader gave the command, in order to present a letter, number, or picture to the opposite side of the stadium.

He finally said: "D'I tell you we decided to bid Hithafea? Speak it not in Gath, though; it's confidential."

"I won't," said Alice, looking very blonde and lovely. "Does that mean that when John takes me to your dances Hithafea will ask to dance with me?"

"Not if you don't want him to. I don't know if he dances."

"I'll try not to shudder. Are you sure he didn't use his mysterious hypnotic powers to make you propose him?"

"Fooey! Professor Kantor in psych says all this talk about the hypnotic powers of the Osirians is bunk. If a man's a naturally good hypnotic subject he'll be hypnotizable, otherwise not. There aren't any mysterious rays the Osirians shoot from their eyes."

"Well," said Alice, "Professor Peterson doesn't agree. He thinks there's something to it, even though nobody has been able to figure out how it works—Oh, here they come. Hithafea makes a divine yell-leader, doesn't he?"

Although the adjective was perhaps not well chosen, the sight of Hithafea, flanked by three pretty coeds on each side, and prancing and waving his megaphone, was certainly unforgettable. It was made even more so by the fact that he was wearing an orange sweater with a big black A on the chest and a freshman beanie on his head. His locomotive-whistle voice rose above the general uproar:

"Atlantic! A-T-L-A-N ..."

At the end of each yell Hithafea flung out his arms with talons spread and leaped three meters into the air on his birdlike legs. He got much more kick out of the rooters' reaction to his yell-leading than the players did, since they were busy playing football. Hithafea himself had had hopes of going out for intercollegiate athletics, preferably track, until the coach had broken it to him as gently as possible that nobody would compete against a being who could broad jump twelve meters without drawing a deep breath.