"I wonder," said Phillip slowly, "what the anthropologists will say."
"What do you mean?"
"Maybe it was just a single mutation somewhere back there. Just a tiny change of cell structure or metabolism that left one line of primates vulnerable to an invader no other would harbor. Why else should man have begun to flower and blossom intellectually—grow to depend so much on his brains instead of his brawn that he could rise above all others? What better reason than because somewhere along the line in the world of fang and claw he suddenly lost his sense of smell?"
They stared at each other. "Well, he's got it back again now," Coffin wailed, "and he's not going to like it a bit."
"No, he surely isn't," Jake agreed. "He's going to start looking very quickly for someone to blame, I think."
They both looked at Coffin.
"Now don't be ridiculous, boys," said Coffin, turning white. "We're in this together. Phillip, it was your idea in the first place—you said so yourself! You can't leave me now—"
The telephone jangled. They heard the frightened voice of the secretary clear across the room. "Dr. Coffin? There was a student on the line just a moment ago. He—he said he was coming up to see you. Now, he said, not later."
"I'm busy," Coffin sputtered. "I can't see anyone. And I can't take any calls."
"But he's already on his way up," the girl burst out. "He was saying something about tearing you apart with his bare hands."