Unseen Academicals

somewhat peckish. Can you fetch the cheeseboards one to five, please? And, um, some of that cold roast beef, some ham, a few biscuits and, of course, the pickle carts.’ He looked up. ‘Anyone want to add anything?’
    ‘I could toy fitfully with a little fruit,’ said the Professor of Recondite Phenomena. ‘How about you, Librarian?’
    ‘Ook,’ growled the figure hogging the fire.
    ‘Yes, of course,’ said the Archchancellor. He waved a hand at the hovering waiter. ‘The fruit trolley as well. See to it, please, Downbody. And…perhaps that new girl could bring it up? She ought to get used to the Uncommon Room.’
    It was as if he had just spoken a magic spell. The room, its ceiling hazy with blue smoke, was suddenly awash with a sort of heavy, curiously preoccupied silence mostly due to dreamy speculation, but in a few rare cases owing to distant memory.
    The new girl…At the mere thought, elderly hearts beat dangerously.
    Very seldom did beauty intrude into the daily life of UU, which was as masculine as the smell of old socks and pipe smoke and, given the faculty’s general laxness when it came to knocking out their pipes, the smell of smoking socks as well. Mrs Whitlow, the housekeeper, she of the clanking chatelaine and huge creaking corset that caused the Chair of Indefinite Studies to swoon when he heard it, generally took great care to select staff who, while being female, were not excessively so, and tended to be industrious, clean in their habits, rosy cheeked and, in short, the kind of ladies who are never too far from gingham and an apple pie. This suited the wizards, who liked to be not far away from an apple pie themselves, although they could take gingham or leave it alone.
    Why, then, had the housekeeper employed Juliet? What could she have been thinking of? The girl had come into the place like a new world in a solar system, and the balance of the heavens was subtly wobbling. And, indeed, as she advanced, so was Juliet.
    By custom and practice, wizards were celibate, in theory because women were distracting and bad for the magical organs, but after a week of Juliet’s presence many of the faculty were subject to (mostly) unfamiliar longings and strange dreams, and were finding things rather hard, but you couldn’t really put your finger on it: what she had went beyond beauty. It was a sort of distillation of beauty that travelled around with her, uncoiling itself into the surrounding ether. When she walked past, the wizards felt the urge to write poetry and buy flowers.
    ‘You may be interested to know, gentlemen,’ said the new Master of The Traditions, ‘that tonight’s was the longest chase ever recorded in the history of the tradition. I suggest we owe a vote of thanks to tonight’s Megapode…’
    He realized the statement had plummeted on to deaf ears. ‘Er, gentlemen?’ he said.
    He looked up. The wizards were staring, in a soulful sort of way, at whatever was going on inside their heads.
    ‘Gentlemen?’ he said again, and this time there was a collective sigh as they woke up from their sudden attack of daydreaming.
    ‘What say?’ said the Archchancellor.
    ‘I was just remarking that tonight’s Megapode was undoubtedly the finest on record, Archchancellor. It was Rincewind. The official Megapode headdress suited him very well, all things considered. I think he’s gone for a lie down.’
    ‘What? Oh, that. Well, yes. Indeed. Well done, that man,’ said Ridcully, and the wizards commenced that slow handclapping and table-thumping which is the mark of appreciation amongst men of a certain age, class and girth, accompanied by cries of ‘Ver’, ver’ well done, that man!’ and ‘Jolly good!’ But eyes stayed firmly fixed on the doorway, and ears strained for the rattle of the trolley, which would herald the arrival of the new girl and, of course, one hundred and seven types of cheese, and more than seventy different varieties of pickles, chutneys and other tracklements. The new girl might be the very paradigm of beauty, but UU was not the place for a man who could forget his cheeses.
    Well, she was a distraction at least, Ponder thought as he snapped the book shut, and the university needed a few of them right now. It had been tricky since the Dean had left, very tricky indeed. Whoever heard of a man resigning from UU? It was something that simply did not happen! Sometimes people left in disgrace, in a box or, in a few cases, in bits, but there was no tradition