. I'll use that old tag line, again--'hoping you
appreciate our brevity as much as we enjoyed yours--'"

"Yes. That'll be all right." He looked at his watch. "I'm going to
make a personal building-tour, instead of using the TV. The animals
are sort of restless, today. The election; the infantile compulsion to
take sides. If you need me for anything urgent, don't use oral call.
Just flash my signal, red-blue-red-blue, on the hall and classroom
screens. Oh, Doug!"

Yetsko, his length of rubber hose under his arm, ambled out of
Prestonby's private office, stopping to stub out his cigarette. The
action reminded Prestonby that he still had his pipe in his mouth; he
knocked it out and pocketed it. Together, they went into the hall
outside.

"Where to, first, captain?" Yetsko wanted to know.

"Cloak-and-Dagger Department, on the top floor. Then we'll drop down
to the shops, and then up through Domestic Science and Business and
General Arts."

"And back here. We hope," Yetsko finished.

* * * * *

They took a service elevator to the top floor, emerging into a
stockroom piled with boxes and crates and cases of sound records and
cans of film and stacks of picture cards, and all the other
impedimenta of Illiterate education. Passing through it to the other
end, Prestonby unlocked a door, and they went down a short hall, to
where ten or fifteen boys and girls had just gotten off a helical
escalator and were queued up at a door at the other end. There were
two Literate guards in black leather, and a student-monitor, with his
white belt and rubber truncheon, outside the door.

Prestonby swore under his breath. He'd hoped they'd miss this, but
since they hadn't, there was nothing for it but to fall in at the tail
of the queue. One by one, the boys and girls went up, spoke briefly to
the guards and the student-monitor, and were passed through the door,
Each time, one of the guards had to open it with a key. Finally, it
was Prestonby's turn.

"B, D, F, H, J, L, N, P, R, T, V, X, Y," he recited to the guardians
of the door.

"A, C, E, G, I, K, M, O, Q, S, U, W, Y," the monitor replied solemnly.
"The inkwell is dry, and the book is dusty."

"But tomorrow, there will be writing and reading for all," Prestonby
answered.

The guard with the key unlocked the door, and he and Yetsko went
through, into an utterly silent sound-proofed room, and from it into
an inner, noisy, room, where a recorded v