The Day the Rabbi Resigned by Harry Kemelman Page B

on Saturday and spend the day in the company of his friend, Don Macomber, and sometimes Macomber’s daughter, who lived in Rockport and would come down to see “Uncle Mark.” They would have dinner at the Ritz Carleton, where Mark stayed, and then go on to the theatre or a concert. Macomber’s daughter would stay over at the president’s house in the college, and then on Sunday they might all drive to her home in Rockport and spend the day there going through the various art galleries in which the town abounded. Monday, he would take care of any business he might have, or if the weather were fine, just walk the streets of the city. Tuesday morning he attended the board meeting. He could easily have come to Boston any time the spirit moved him, but he felt it was frivolous to leave his business without a specific reason, and the board meeting provided that.
    But now he was in Boston on his own. He had come up in the middle of the week, and he had to fly back the next morning. He was taking dinner at the president’s house, and it was a plainer meal than the Ritz dining room afforded because it had been prepared by the housekeeper, who also did the cooking for Macomber. They had just finished, and Levine lit a cigar. “How are things going at the school?” he asked.
    â€œAll right so far, but applications for admission are down. Oh, there are a lot more applications than we can accommodate. I mean, even of those who are acceptable, but the trend is down.”
    â€œYoung people getting disenchanted with the idea of coming to Windermere?”
    â€œOh, it’s national. It’s not just us. Tuition is up everywhere, student loans harder to get because of government cutbacks, and there’s a decline in the number of young people of college age in the population as a whole.”
    â€œYou mean you’re worried about next year and the year after?”
    â€œAnd the year after that and maybe for the next few years. A number of colleges have already closed down. The well-known schools, the prestige universities, won’t feel it for a while, maybe never, but my guess is that they’ll be taking in more and more students that they wouldn’t have considered a few years ago. You might say that the bloom appears to be off. It’s like any other business: in boom times it expands, and when there is a downturn, the weaker ones are driven to the wall.”
    â€œBut education is not a business,” Levine objected. “I know what you mean, of course. Down in Dallas, when oil was selling at thirty dollars a barrel and higher, people began building like crazy, and now when it’s selling at about half that, we have any number of real estate firms filing for bankruptcy and dragging the banks that gave them construction loans with them. But colleges …”
    â€œWell, colleges are in the real estate business, too. They got up a bunch of new buildings, too, dormitories, laboratories, classrooms. We didn’t because we had no land to expand on, but we took over all the old brownstones on Clark Street and converted them into dormitories, mostly. You see, as a fall-back school, we get a lot of out-of-towners. We’re no longer a local college where the students live at home.”
    â€œAre we in trouble?”
    â€œNot yet, but looking ahead …”
    There was a silence for a little while as Macomber sipped his coffee and Levine blew smoke up at the ceiling. Then Levine asked, “So what do you plan to do?”
    â€œI’m hoping to change the nature of the school. Make it a school of first choice rather than a fall-back school. Actually, it’s what I’ve always wanted to do. It’s my reason for coming here in the first place.”
    â€œI’ve always wondered why you did,” said Levine, and then with a chuckle, “I’m sure it wasn’t for the money.”
    Macomber smiled. “No, it wasn’t for the money.