"Don't tell me," Jinx said. "He'd gone to the wrong apartment?"
Belcher said, "No, that's what I used."
"The surprise is," Dugan said, "that the research man is doing this work for his doctorate, and he knows he'll never get his degree because even coming back to the time of the new Shakespeare he can't gather enough material!"
Dugan looked around expectantly, but it'd laid an egg. There was an uncomfortable pause while Mallison mumbled bitterly to himself. Jinx was very unhappy and tried to say complimentary things. I suppose he felt responsible.
Only I wasn't doing much supposing because I had the most peculiar sensation.
I believed Dugan's story.
I was thinking of that manuscript that'd blown out the window and I was trying to remember whether I'd used a paper weight to anchor it down. I was thinking of that gadget with buttons and I was realizing how this mysterious Dugan'd slipped from one tense to another—which is a thing all writers are conscious of and which began to have psychological import for me.
But the most convincing thing of all was how the others were looking at Dugan. Belcher was staring keenly from under his black eyebrows—Belcher, who wrote that sort of stuff and who should have been sophisticated. The little guy with the pipe was absolutely electrified. I knew it couldn't be the story because the story was lousy even for pulp.
Finally Dugan said, "That's all there is. How d'you like it?"