Unwise to Interrupt Coffee Hour

One fine midmorning in May when our coffee klatch was settled into one of its usual heated discussions of academic policies over a draught of that brew which won the Golden Cup Award, and from which our dining club takes its illustrious name, Dr. Bjorn Berg-Bjorn, our distinguished philosophy chairman, was reclining his six-foot-seven frame against his chair as was his wont, so that the provincial French piece supported the weight upon its rear cabriole legs alone. He clasped his large hands atop his long head as if to stretch his thoughts as well as his body to their fullest capacities.

“It’s clear enough,” Dr. Berg-Bjorn proposed, “that the good Dean means to further his proposed curriculum changes by one means or another at any cost.”

A man approached swiftly from Berg-Bjorn’s blind side and accosted
the latter in an aggressive, husky voice.

“See here, sir, sit up straight or get out at once!” he barked.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” Berg-Bjorn flushed. “I must have forgotten myself.”

“Forgot yourself? Indeed!” the manager’s voice took a sinister tone.

“I made my apologies, now be gone, knave!” Berg-Bjorn exploded.

“What? Knave, you say? We’ll see about that, you educator!” blustered the man, and with uncontrolled force slapped Berg—Bjorn on the latter’s right ear. “Get out, all of you!”

Our philosopher, never known for violence, detonated to his full height and with blinding speed unleashed a most unacademic right fist squarely into the manager’s left eye, knocking the man to the floor like a brick. “Let us adjourn to a more hospitable hall, gentlemen, and leave this disagreeable man to his rudeness,” he said turning away.

We all rose, stunned, to leave forthwith, but the manager, though badly shaken, picked up Berg-Bjorn’s French Provincial chair and brought it down crashing upon the latter’s head and shoulders, sending our chairman staggering against the wall with a thud.

“Now you’ve played me foul indeed,” Berg—Bjorn recovered. “I wasn’t even looking, varlet!”

Whereupon, it is sad to record, our chairman went in a fair way berserk, splitting chairs like matchsticks, upsetting tables, tearing down chandeliers, ripping out sconces and trappings, smashing statuary and dislodging pilasters till we feared to a man the seething Samson would
raze the entire building to rubble around us.

In the space of moments he decimated the main dining room. Not a table or chair, fixture or lamp remained intact, and the righteous, three hundred pound juggernaut wheeled around with bloody eyes and flashing teeth for something further upon which to expend his insatiable wrath.

‘Aha!” he shouted, spying the serving line and kitchen beyond.

With a hideous laugh he bore down upon the seventy-foot gleaming steam table and applied his mighty shoulders. The metal and glass monolith groaned heavily under the force, and at length with a deafening roar overturned and smashed to ruin.

“Haha!” the giant roared. Then he rushed toward the kitchen, tore the door from its moorings and sent it whirling like a boomerang through a partition wall. We could only tremble in wonder at our colleague s inexhaustible fervor and incredible strength as he methodically went about destroying every article of value in the kitchen and returned with a hunk of meat in one hand, evidently torn from a beef in the larder. He stood tall, tearing the morsel savagely with his fangs till it was gone.

“Ahhaayaheeyah!” he bellowed, beating his chest furiously, the cry reverberating through the great space. “Hear me, ye Pharisees. I am the wise Fisher King of the Phoenicians, the courageous Khan, the invincible Constantine and the great Alexander rolled into one! Omnipotent is my wrath! Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

“Bravo!” we hailed. “Magnificent!”

Whereupon, to entertain us, our hero plucked up overhead the jellied manager like a weightless toy, and drawing far back his elastic arms, flung the wretch with ferocious velocity the entire length of the hail, striking down four officers of the law like ninepins in a heap.

“What ho! Well wrought!” we applauded.

Our champion now looked about for something left to rend, but finding nothing, at last dashed his swollen hands together, his wrath visibly diminishing at the terrible and utter deve station about us.
“There!” he shouted toward the manager. ‘That will instruct you in the virtue of philosophy! Now hie thee hence, Pharisee, and take your lackeys withal!”

The manager and the officers scrambled out the door as our liberator returned triumphant, adjusted his coat and tie, and resumed his seat, carefully balancing himself on its two remaining rear legs as was his wont.

“Well, my friends, I regret this inconvenience,” he said.

No one spoke for some time. Finally Smythe-Jones, the chemistry scholar, ventured a quiet opinion: “That was very embarrassing, I’m afraid.”

“Yes, I’ll have to be more careful,” Dr. Berg—Bjorn agreed. “We wouldn’t wish to cause any iii feelings here.” He hemmed to clear his throat. “Now, as we were discussing, how would you gentlemen react to the Dean’s proposed reduction of the general education requirements?”