nnounced his candidacy for Senate, in the
spring. "You didn't!"

"I know; it's an awful thing to think, but--Well, the kids today do
the craziest things. There's that Hartnett boy he runs around with;
Tom Hartnett bought Literate training for him. And that fellow
Prestonby; I don't trust him--"

"Prestonby?" Claire asked, puzzled.

"Oh, you know. The principal at school. You've met him."

Claire wrinkled her brow--just like her mother, when she was trying to
remember something.

"Oh, yes. I met him at that P.T.A. meeting. He didn't impress me as
being much like a teacher, but I suppose they think anything's good
enough for us Illiterates."

* * * * *

Literate First Class Ralph N. Prestonby remained standing by the
lectern, looking out over the crowded auditorium, still pleasantly
surprised to estimate the day's attendance at something like
ninety-seven per cent of enrollment. That was really good; why, it was
only three per cent short of perfect! Maybe it was the new rule
requiring a sound-recorded excuse for absence. Or it could have been
his propaganda campaign about the benefits of education. Or, very
easily, it could have been the result of sending Doug Yetsko and some
of his boys around to talk to recalcitrant parents. It was good to see
that that was having some effect beside an increase in the number of
attempts on his life, or the flood of complaints to the Board of
Education. Well, Lancedale had gotten Education merged with his
Office of Communications, and Lancedale was back of him to the limit,
so the complaints had died out on the empty air. And Doug Yetsko was
his bodyguard, so most of the would-be assassins had died, also.

The "North American Anthem," which had replaced the "Star-Spangled
Banner" after the United States-Canadian-Mexican merger, came to an
end. The students and their white-smocked teachers, below, relaxed
from attention; most of them sat down, while monitors and teachers in
the rear were getting the students into the aisles and marching them
off to study halls and classrooms and workshops. The orchestra struck
up a lively march tune. He leaned his left elbow--Literates learned
early, or did not live to learn, not to immobilize the right hand--on
the lectern and watched the interminable business of getting the
students marched out, yearning, as he always did at this time, for the
privacy of his office, where he could smoke his pipe. Finally, they
w