came right up against Oka Sayye on the solution of a theorem in
trigonometry. We both had the answer, the correct answer, but we
had arrived at it by widely different routes, and it was up to me
to prove that my line of reasoning was more lucid, more natural,
the inevitable one by which the solution should be reached. We
got so in earnest that I am afraid both of us were rather tense.
I stepped over to his demonstration to point out where I thought
his reasoning was wrong. I got closer to the Jap than I had ever
been before; and by gracious, Linda! scattered, but nevertheless
still there, and visible, I saw a sprinkling of gray hairs just
in front of and over his ears. It caught me unawares, and before
I knew what I was doing, before the professor and the assembled
classroom I blurted it out: 'Say, Oka Sayye, how old are you?'
If the Jap had had any way of killing me, I believe he would have
done it. There was a look in his eyes that was what I would call
deadly. It was only a flash and then, very courteously, putting
me in the wrong, of course, he remarked that he was 'almost
ninekleen'; and it struck me from his look and the way he said it
that it was a lie. If he truly was the average age of the rest
of the class there was nothing for him to be angry about. Then I
did take a deliberate survey. From the settled solidity of his
frame and the shape of his hands and the skin of his face and the
set of his eyes in his head, I couldn't see that much youth.
I'll bet he's thirty if he's a day, and I shouldn't be a bit
surprised if he has graduated at the most worthwhile university
in Japan, before he ever came to this country to get his English
for nothing."

Linda was watching a sea swallow now, and slowly her lean fingers
were gathering handfuls of sand and sifting them into a little