"You are," Dax said. "Very." He thought the remark was rather neat, but the boy looked at him without any change of expression. Why was he here? What did he want to say? "I must confess," Dax went on, "that I am surprised at your interest in grades. I should have thought that rock-and-roll was more your style. That and ... er ... racing around at night in a fast car!" He felt that he was sneering, and made his face blank. "I'm too young for a driver's license," Mallison said. "But old enough to pull yourself together and do some real work. You could do much better in class. You're not stupid." * * * * * The boy said nothing and continued to stare at him without expression. "When I see signs of an improved attitude," Dax said, "and a little more work, I shall mark you accordingly. One gets the impression usually that your mind is on other things. Things like jazz records." "Didn't you listen to jazz when you were young, Mr. Dax?" Howard Dax at thirty-nine hardly thought of himself as old. The boy was not being exactly fresh, but he had a sort of polite tactlessness. It was absurd, but he felt that Mallison had the upper hand, somehow. Dax had an older brother who had been a lieutenant in World War II, and he had described to him an occasion on which he had interviewed an elderly staff sergeant. The staff sergeant in civilian life had been his brother's boss. Although his manner was scrupulously correct, there remained an atmosphere of his peacetime ascendancy. Howard Dax sympathized with his brother. There was nothing actually wrong with Mallison's manner, but the pupil had the master on the defensive. He decided to ignore Mallison's question. He had no idea how the young nowadays felt about the subject of early Benny Goodman or the emergence of Barrel House. Why was he even bothering? "The point at issue," he said with asperity, "is not whether I used to listen to jazz twenty-five years ago, but whether you are going to pay attention in class _now_. I admit you manage to scrape through in the tests, but this morning, for example, you acted as if you were half asleep!" "I'm sorry. I was very tired." Mallison did look pale. "I suppose you were up half the night--cutting a rug." Mallison winced at the outdated jargon but he merely shook his head. There were firm steps in the corridor, and the school principal marched in. Mallison stood up; Dax was still standing. The principal had a small piece of folded paper in his hand, and did not immediately notice the boy, whose desk was near the back row and next the open windows. He went straight to the platform and put the folded paper on Dax's desk. He nodded curtly and glanced towards the windows, and saw Mallison sitting there for the first time. * * * * * "I thought you were alone," he said, turning to Dax.