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.