"This man is the bane of my existence," Frank often said, referring to one of his employees.

One year we had a Greek work-study whom Frank called "Bombastic Bushkin," because his voice carried. Frank forbade him to speak in the Arena, but the fellow knew no measure. In his heyday, he had driven a cab and operated a florist's shop; now he was back with a vengeance to earn his degree and extol the virtues of the Greeks versus the pitfalls of the Turks, all on the clock.

Jerry was another work-study. At some point his allotment dried up and Frank could not be moved to keep him on a casual basis. So Jerry found a similar gig on the 14th floor. He would visit his old haunts several times a day. Frank, ever the opportunist, sent him on errands. "Jerry's doing pro bono work for Harriman," he'd explain. When I protested that he was taking advantage of Jerry, Frank said, "Let me say this about that: Harriman kept Jerry off bread and water."

The summers were somewhat dull. The usual suspects (also known as Harriman groupies) did not darken our threshold, for there were no students, no events, and therefore, no free food. Barbara, who organized coffee and snacks for the various roundtables Harriman hosted in 1219, could sometimes be convinced to break out the cookies. Frank would say, "Barbara, break out the cookies," and the deed was done. Frank shunned oatmeal-and-raisin; he'd banned them. But like Bombastic Bushkin, they kept coming back.

One summer Jerry and the Greek discovered the economic viability of double-fisting. They would clock in at Harriman and sneak off on errands, that is, to participate in psychological experiments in Schermerhorn. These paid some $7 for half-an-hour of surveys or word games. I'll forgo the skewing effect this conniving pair's eager participation must have had on the results. Suffice it to say that one day they fled the Arena shortly after Frank left for the day. (I stayed behind to centralize and do the right thing by Frank's machine.) Somewhere on Low Plaza, Frank, who had stopped at the little boy's room, found himself walking behind the jubilant pair. They were on their way to another experiment and were congratulating themselves on their great escape.

"You could've waited till the body was cold," called Frank, overtaking them.