The last few days, I thought—and then I caught myself. Better to focus on the specific. To that end, something had occurred to me. I had made an error, I realized. It concerned the looking up of the names in the phone book. But before I could identify what exactly I had missed, the door to the break room swung open, and Alex Foss burst in, trailing behind him a tall, slender young man with a straw-blond mustache.

I’d heard Alex Foss, a junior faculty member, called a “rising star” in the department. Be that as it may, I found him unbearable, a big, boorish golden retriever of a man, and I felt an automatic sympathy for his companion, whom he introduced in his overloud voice as a Mr. Reinecke, visiting from Germany.

“Well, well, well,” said Foss, gesturing at the trash can. “Big night last night?”

I smiled weakly.

“Didn’t think you were the type.”

It was just the kind of joke one could expect from Alex Foss. I ignored him, and stood to shake the younger man’s hand, noting his firm grip, clear blue eyes, and friendly mien. A second ago I had been full of my own schemes, and now I was momentarily arrested—who was this?

“Just a quick tour of the medical school,” Alex Foss was saying. With a swift movement of his head he indicated his companion. “He’s interviewing for a fellowship. That a fresh pot?”

Mr. Reinecke was dressed far too formally for the occasion, I saw, in well-cut gray slacks, a pressed shirt, and leather shoes. He would get a shock, as I once had, when he met the senior faculty, in their blue jeans, athletic shoes, and ridiculous puffed vests. In fact, it was true that I saw something of myself in Mr. Reinecke, myself as a younger man.

“Yes,” I said. “Please, have a cup.”

I directed my remark at Mr. Reinecke, hoping somehow to communicate that I was sensitive to his plight, saddled as he was with such an unpleasant tour guide.

“This stuff is practically gasoline,” Alex Foss was saying, as he flung open the cupboard and took out two mugs, each embossed with our institution’s evergreen emblem.

“But the lounge in the hospital isn’t open yet,” he continued, pouring them each a cup. “That’s where they keep the good stuff, the espresso machine.” I would not have been surprised if he had winked.

He took a big gulp of coffee and made a show of grimacing. He knew as well as I did that the lounge to which he was referring, on the third floor of the hospital, was frequented exclusively by physicians, by custom if not by rule. Was Mr. Reinecke a physician? I wondered. He looked barely old enough to have a driver’s license, but one never knew.

“Where in Germany are you from?” I asked.