A couple of weeks later, Charlie Eppes was poking around Larry's office looking for the copy of Fibonacci Quarterly that Larry had borrowed. A squeaking noise distracted him from his quest.
"Larry, do you have mice in your office?" he asked. He turned around and spotted the source of the noise. A wire cage, with a water bottle and an exercise wheel was sitting on the bookcase behind Larry's desk.
"Um, no, Charles, that's a Syrian hamster, also known as the golden hamster."
"Oh," Charlie said. He spotted his magazine under the hamster cage. He mentally gave thanks to John the Apostle, patron saint of printed material, that the magazine had not wound up in the hamster cage.
"Why'd you get a hamster?" Charlie asked.
Larry hesitated. "Oh, I picked up Houdini up on a whim," he said, hiding behind his vague persona. He knew Charlie wouldn't think of it as anything other than one of his many eccentricities.
"Houdini?" Charlie asked. The mathematician leaned over and studied the cage and its contents.
"Well, I was warned that he was quite the escape artist," Larry explained.
"She," Charlie corrected.
Larry frowned at Charlie. "What makes you think that Houdini is a female?" he asked.
Charlie gestured toward the cage.
Larry could hear squeaking, even though the wheel was not in use. He moved over and, well, blinking seemed the appropriate reaction. So he did so, several times.
"It looks like Houdini has conjured up a litter," Charlie said with a smirk.
Larry stopped blinking and stared. There were six naked little baby hamsters huddled around Houdini. "Oh, my," he said.
First Larry was disconcerted. Then a surge of pleasure hit him as he realized that he hadn't just saved one life, but seven. "Seven with one stroke," he murmured.
Charlie shot him a look, and then obviously decided not to question Larry's comment. "Um, can you give me a hand? That's my magazine under there."
"Of course," Larry said quickly. He grabbed an ancient copy of National Geographic to put under the cage instead of Charlie's Fibonacci Quarterly. A sudden thought struck him.
"Um, Charles," he said.
"No," Charlie said. "I don't need a hamster. I have two cats and a pond full of koi fish. That's enough wildlife for me."
"Hm," Larry said, studying the hamster family.
"You know, Viola is always looking for rodents," Charlie said.
Larry glared at him.
"Or not," Charlie said, raising his hands.