Dr. Mathis stepped inside his office and closed thedoor. His assistant wasn't in yet, butthat was not unusual. Dr. Mathis enjoyedbeing the first to work, and liked the quiet order of his office in these fewhours before the chaos of the university intruded on it. Tall, broad book shelves lined the walls andwere filled with various volumes and journals of physics, some going back tothe seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It was a collection that had taken him a lifetime to carefully assembleand catalogue, and it was one of his prized possessions.
Dr. Mathis dropped his folded paper onto his mahogany deskand then dropped himself into his overstuff espresso leather executivechair. Most of the furnishings in theoffice were at least sixty years old and had belonged at one time to his grandfather,a forty year county judge from Tennessee. The desk and the chair were the one exception and had come from a stocktrader's firm in depression era Chicago.
On most days, these familiar trappings calmed him and gavehim a sense of order and purpose with which to begin the day. This morning, however, his routine had beeninterrupted and he'd been deeply shaken by his unexpected visitor. After a long moment, Dr. Mathis flipped openhis newspaper and turned to the classifieds. On page 12C, he found a small add in the corner that was simply a phonenumber with no description at all.
Dr. Mathis sat for a long, silent moment staring at thatphone number as the normal noise of the university coming to life with thepassing morning grew louder.
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