The Listening Walls by Margaret Millar Page A

One of her frequent partners, an elderly retired lawyer, a widower named Jacobson, waved to her out of a fast rhumba and Miss Burton waved back, thinking, one of these days he’s going to drop dead right on the floor. I just hope it’s not me he’s dancing with when it happens.
    The instructor screamed over the music at no one in particular, “Don’t sway your hips! Forget about your hips! If your feet are doing the right thing your hips will do the right thing. Do I make myself heard ?”
    He made himself heard but hips refused to be forgot­ten.
    Miss Burton tapped her foot and surveyed the room from the doorway. Not many spectators tonight. A woman with a little girl. A pair of teen-agers, a boy and a girl, with matching shirts and matching expressions of boredom. A middle-aged woman wearing a pound of pearls. And, standing right next to Miss Burton herself, a man with bushy gray hair that seemed to emphasize the youthful alertness of his face. He looked as though he had wandered into the place by mistake, but now that he was there he was determined to get the most out of it.
    He said, with a slight frown, “I don’t understand the business about not swaying your hips. That’s a rhumba they’re doing, isn’t it?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI thought in a rhumba you were supposed to sway your hips.”
    Miss Burton smiled. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”
    â€œYes. My first time.”
    â€œAre you going to be in the class?”
    â€œI guess so,” the man said, sounding rather pained. “I guess I have to.”
    â€œWhy? There’s no law about it.”
    â€œWell, you see I won a scholarship. I can’t very well waste it.”
    â€œWhat kind of scholarship?”
    â€œThere was this advertisement in the paper showing pictures of people doing various kinds of dances. If you identified the dances correctly you were given a scholar­ship, thirty dollars’ worth of free lessons. I won. I can’t understand it exactly,” he added. “I mean, there are a lot of people know more about dancing than I do, thou­sands of them. But I won.”
    Miss Burton didn’t want to hurt his feelings but she didn’t want him to be taken in, either. He was so naïve and earnest, a little bit like Mr. Kellogg. “I’m sure you could win lots of real contests if you put your mind to it.”
    â€œThis one wasn’t real?”
    â€œNo. Everybody won. It was just a come-on so the Kent Academy could get the names of people who are inter­ested in dancing.”
    â€œBut I’m not interested in dancing. I’m just interested in contests.”
    Miss Burton whooped with laughter. “Oh dear. That’s a good joke on the Academy. What other kind of contests do you go in for?”
    â€œAny kind. Also tests. I buy all the magazines and do the tests, like, for instance, ‘Would You Make a Good Engineer?’, or ‘What Is Your Social I.Q.?’, or ‘Can You Qualify as a Quiz Contestant?’ Things like that. I do pretty well in them.” He added with a sigh: “I guess they’re rigged too, like this here contest.”
    â€œOh, I don’t believe that,” Miss Burton said loyally. “Maybe you really would make a good engineer.”
    â€œI hope so. I do some engineering occasionally.”
    â€œWhat kind of engineering?”
    â€œIt’s classified.”
    â€œYou mean, like secret missiles and things?”
    â€œThat’s close enough,” he replied. “What do you do?”
    â€œMe? Oh, I’m just a secretary. I work for Rupert Kel­logg. He’s an accountant.”
    â€œI’ve heard of him.” Too often , he thought. Much too often.
    â€œHe’s the best accountant in town. The best boss too.”
    â€œYou don’t say.”
    â€œOther bosses I’ve had used to get their mean days. Mr. Kellogg never has a