Free Agyar by Steven Brust

student, I think. I had a good attitude, which, I believe, means that one looks on learning as a
game; or rather, a series of games, such as: What can I invent as a device to remember the year the War of the Roses ended? Or, how can I use my studies of German philosophy to help with a paper on natural science?
    Now that I think of it, I cannot remember when the War of the Roses ended, and the little I remember of German philosophy is that a few of us once wrote a poem about an imaginary duel between Feuerbach and Hegel, which the latter eventually won by putting the former to sleep and then drowning him in a twenty-page sentence. It sounds more clever than it probably was, but we were pleased with it at the time, although we never dared to show it to our professors.
    Nevertheless, I think I was a good student. I have, at any rate, retained a strong desire to learn, and a tendency to question things around me. I’ve been told that age brings acceptance and complacency, and I’ve even seen examples of this, but it seems not to be true in my case.
    Age does, however, bring about an annoying softening of the hard edges of memory; there are now many things of which I no longer remember the details, only how those details affected me. I remember a Latin professor named Smythe, and I have the feeling that he was a devoutly religious man, yet kind and well disposed toward me, but I can no longer remember what he looked like, nor any of the things he actually did. This annoys me.
    As I said, I was not able to use the typewriting machine yesterday, because the house was invaded just as I was about to come up to my sanctum. It was not a serious, nor even frightening invasion; there were three boys, aged about ten or eleven, who, from what little I picked up of their conversation, had been dared or had dared each other to spend a night in the haunted house.
    I kept urging Jim to make himself visible to them, or
let me rattle some woodwork or something, but he wouldn’t. We sat in the basement with the dust and the spiders and occasionally went up to see if they were still there.
    “You like children, don’t you?” I said.
    “Used to be one,” said Jim.
    “Would you have spent a night in a haunted house?”
    “No, sir, not for anything.”
    “I think I might have, if we’d had one around.”
    “I would have thought that haunted houses were everywhere.”
    “Not as such. We knew ghosts appeared, here and there, but mostly in places we couldn’t get to. And there were always a few spirits of one sort or another in everyone’s house, or at least we thought there were, but I don’t remember anyone ever leaving a house because there was a spirit there. Then, in England—”
    “When did you go to England?”
    “I was sent to University there. In England there were stories of ghosts in nearly every building on the campus, I think, but I can’t recall any in houses.”
    “These kids got some grit, though,” he said.
    “Maybe. We could find out for sure if you’d—”
    “No.”
    “Have it your way. I’m going to take a walk.”
    “Can you get out of the house without them seeing you?”
    “Is that a joke?”
    “Yes.”
    “Enjoy the basement.”
    I wandered for a while, something I was getting good at, but did nothing of interest beyond making some very general plans for the next day.
    Laura Kellem was waiting near the front door, apparently having determined that I wasn’t home. Her head
was uncovered, and, while she had no more hair missing, there were still those odd bald patches. They made her look slightly grotesque, which in an odd way enhanced her attractiveness.
    When she saw me, the first thing she said was, “What was it you wanted to see me about that drove you to place an ad in the personals, of all things?”
    “It worked. How else could I see you? You’ve carefully arranged things so all communication is one-way.”
    “Well, I’m here. Shall we go inside?”
    “Sorry, company.”
    “Excuse