"That makes me feel a little better. People eating one another!"

"Oh, there was cannibalism, all right. There is no doubt of that. But whether Oop himself was headed for the pot is another matter. On items of general information, he is reliable enough. It's only when he gets to yarning about his personal experiences that you should begin to doubt him."

"It's funny," said Carol. "I've seen him around and have wondered a bit about him, but I never thought I'd meet him. Never really wanted to, in fact. Certain people I can draw a line at, and he was one of them. I imagined he would be uncouth..."

"Oh, he's uncouth," said Maxwell.

"But charming, too," said Carol.

Clear autumn stars shone frostily deep in the darkened sky. The roadway, almost unoccupied, wound its way along the ridge. Far below gleamed the far-spreading campus lights. The wind, blowing up the ridge, carried the faint smell of burning leaves.

"The fire was nice," said Carol. "Why is it, Peter, that we don't have fires? It would be so simple. A fireplace wouldn't be so hard to build."

"There was a time, several hundred years ago," said Maxwell, "when every house, or almost every house, had at least one fireplace. Sometimes several. The whole thing, the whole business of having fires, was a throwback, of course. Back to the days when fire was a protection and a warmth. But, finally, we outgrew it."

"I don't think we did," she said. "We just walked away, is all. Turned our back upon this one segment of our past. We still have need of fire. A psychological need, perhaps. I found that out tonight. It was so exciting and so comfortable. Primal, maybe, but there still must be some of the primal in us."

"Oop," he told her, "couldn't live without a fire.