"Certainly not!" Dugan looked shocked. "Well, the research man had
less than a day. There was some trouble locating the new Shakespeare's
address, and when he did, it was already late at night. Now here's the
first little surprise. The man lived in the Bronx."
We smiled back at him because most of us live in the Bronx. Maybe it
was a kind of sour smile, but we appreciated the irony. No Bohemian
Greenwich Village, no romantic New England retreat--just unadulterated
Bronx.
Dugan said, "He lived in an ordinary apartment house, one like a
million others. The research man hadn't time enough for formality, so
at three in the morning he learned how to operate the self-service
elevator, went up to the apartment, and broke in to snoop around.
"He expected, at least, to find something different--to see in the
furniture and decorations and books an outward sign of the new
Shakespeare's great talent. But it was just a plain apartment--so plain
that it needs no description. When I say that there are a million
others like it, I've described it down to the ultimate detail."
"What'd he expect," Joey asked, "genius?"
"Isn't that what we all expect of genius?" Dugan countered. "Certainly
the research man was disappointed. He sneaked a look at the sleeping
genius--and saw a dull, undistinguished person thrashing ungracefully
about on the bed. Nevertheless, he crept about silently, taking motion
pictures and--"
"At three A.M.?"
"Oh well," Dugan said, "cameras of the Twenty-third Century and all
that, you know."
"Could be," Jinx said. "Infra-red photography."
The little guy with the pipe bobbed his head as though he'd invented
infra-red rays.
"Then," Dugan went on, "he went to the new Shakespeare's desk and
gathered all the manuscripts he could find, because in his time there
were no surviving manuscripts from his hand. And now--here's the final
surprise."
"Don't tell me," Jinx said. "He'd gone to the wrong apartment?"