e's what I estimate Joyner and
Graves will try to do, and here's what I'm going to do to counter
it--"

* * * * *

A couple of men in the maroon uniform of Pelton's store police were
waiting as Prestonby's 'copter landed on the top stage; one of them
touched his cap-visor with his gas-billy in salute and said: "Literate
Prestonby? Miss Pelton is expecting you; she's in her father's office.
This way, if you please, sir."

He had hoped to find her alone, but when he entered the office, he saw
five or six of the store personnel with her. Since opening her
father's safe, she had evidently dropped all pretense of Illiteracy;
there was a mass of papers spread on the big desk, and she was
referring from one to another of them with the deft skill of a regular
Fraternities Literate, while the others watched in fascinated horror.

"Wait a moment, Mr. Hutschnecker," she told the white-haired man in
the blue and orange business suit with whom she had been talking, and
laid the printed price-schedule down, advancing to meet him.

"Ralph!" she greeted him. "Frank Cardon told me you were coming. I--"

For a moment, he thought of the afternoon, over two years ago, when
she had entered his office at the school, and he had recognized her as
the older sister of young Ray Pelton.

"Professor Prestonby," she had begun, accusingly, "you have been
teaching my brother, Raymond Pelton, to read!"

He had been prepared for that; had known that sooner or later there
would be some minor leak in the security screen around the classrooms
on the top floor.

"My dear Miss Pelton," he had protested pleasantly. "I think you've
become overwrought over nothing. This pretense to Literacy is a phase
most boys of Ray's age pass through; they do it just as they play
air-pirates or hi-jackers a few years earlier. The usual trick is to
memorize something heard from a record disk, and then pretend to read
it from print."

"Don't try to kid me, professor. I know that Ray can read. I can prove
it."

"And supposing he has learned a few words," he had parried. "Can you
be sure I taught him? And if so, what had you thought of doing about
it? Are you going to expose me as a corrupter of youth?"

"Not unless I have to," she had replied coolly. "I'm going to
blackmail you, professor. I want you to teach me to read, too."

Now, with this gang of her father's Illiterate store officials
present, a quick handclasp and a glance