- While walking around the university, Jim runs into a student named Michie, a very serious student who probably knows more about history than Jim does, and is annoying for this reason.
- Jim tries to talk to him as little as possible.
- Michie is looking for a sample syllabus from Jim's special subject course. Seems Jim needs to design a whole course for advanced history students.
- The thing is, Jim wants to design a course that won't attract Michie, but will attract the three good-looking female history students. Yeah, Jim's a bit of a pig sometimes.
- Michie keeps giving Jim advice about what to do for his special subject course. Jim just listens and tries to make Michie go away.
- When he gets home, Jim finds an envelope from someone named L.S. Caton. He opens it to discover that this Caton dude wants to publish his (Jim's) shipbuilding article.
- This is the first good piece of news Jim's had in a while, so he busts out a dance in the front hallway of his rooming house.
- He knows it'll be harder for the university to fire him now.
- In the hallway, he sees a music magazine that's been delivered to one of his neighbors, a musician named Evan Johns.
- As a joke, Jim draws a bunch of stuff on the cover of the magazine.
- Inside the kitchen, Jim runs into another boarder in his house named Alfred Beesley. He tells Beesley the good news; but Beesley says the letter Jim got is way too vague.
- He advises Jim to ask the Caton guy for a definite publishing date.
- A guy named Bill Atkinson walks into the kitchen, and everyone is quiet for a moment.
- Then Beesley suddenly asks Jim if his article is any good. Jim doesn't know what the question means, since he assumes that all academic articles are stupid and not worth talking about.
- Beesley asks if the article has any worth apart from helping Jim keep his job. Jim says no way, since he's totally cynical about this stuff.
- This, of course, leads Beesley to ask the question we've all been wondering about: why in heck did Jim ever get into academia in the first place?
- Jim answers that he specialized in medieval history because it was the easiest course when he was going to school. Beesley doesn't seem to agree with Jim's cop-out approach to life, so he gets up and leaves.
- With Beesley's gone, Jim turns to Bill Atkinson and asks him for a favor.
- He needs Bill to telephone the Welches' house on Sunday morning and say that Jim's parents are in town for a visit.
- This way, Jim will be able to leave the Welches' house earlier than expected.
- Bill's a cynical guy just like Jim, and he's more than happy to cooperate.
- Just at this moment though, the musical roommate Even Johns walks into the kitchen. The guy's probably not happy about someone (Jim) marking up the cover of his magazine.
- Jim's worried that Johns has heard him ask Atkinson about phoning the Welches and lying for him.
- It turns out that Johns is a good friend of Mrs. Welch, and he'll be attending the artsy weekend at the Welches' too.
- A few minutes later, Jim's running with a suitcase to the bus stop to catch a ride to the Welches'. He could have ridden in a car, but didn't want to sit next to Johns the whole way there.