"Yes. In celebration, I am at this very moment drinking Rocky Mountain Lager which was brewed in Calgary. And now it's time to ask: How did your class go?"
"I arrived late, which seldom happens. By the time I got there, Yuri had already made friends with half the class. Big blond guy, wearing a West Point Black Knights hockey jersey with the sleeves cut off. Before I arrived, he enlisted student help in translating what I said, although according to Jack, this American diplomat, posted in Leningrad, was born in Brooklyn."
"In the studio", she told Griff, "Yuri was more interested in breaking the codex than in making an accordion book. He used an electric jigsaw and a Makita drill on the remaining discarded library books, built a windowed structure. Into the building, he plans to insert a hockey rink, miniature toy people, words, and various other rooms about which I have some concern."
"The Trojans?" she asked, sensing that Griff did not want to hear any more about Yuri.
"It has been over 10 years since Stanford beat USC , and that year – 1975 -- was the last time we defeated the Trojans. Ted Tollner, their coach, is formidable. He was the quarterback on the 1960 Cal Poly football team, when their chartered plane crashed and burned on takeoff at the Toledo airport. Half the team died. Tollner had his leg wired together and could not play in the NFL."