"Well, what is it?" Lowell asked, his face bland.

"This morning I had an anonymous phone call…"

Lowell looked annoyed. "An anonymous phone call, really Reverend, unless you have something specific in mind… those boys down at Billings Hall are always calling up here with some prank or other…"

"This did have some kind of a ring of truth to it, Dean Lowell."

"Shoot," Lowell said, looking quite bored with the whole matter and wondering how he could keep this brief.

"I've heard that the old School Board offices are being used for some sort of uh… parties."

The minister could not quite bring himself to say orgies.

He looked directly into the eyes of the dean, and thought he saw the faintest flicker of something… shock…? Fear? But whatever it was, it disappeared almost at once, and now he saw the guarded look that was the school administrator's regular demeanor.

"Well, I believe the offices are rented out. So what if they're being used for parties?"

"The parties are not parties in the strictest sense of the word. You haven't heard anything about what goes on there?"

"Perhaps, in passing," he replied carelessly. "The building is quite large and there are some big old comfortable rooms there with fireplaces and the like which are very conducive to entertaining. If people want to rent the place and take their friends I don't see any harm in that. Really, if you're referring to drinks being served there, I see no harm in that."

Corman felt a slow flush crawling over his face. It was just like the dean to dismiss him as an alarmist. Well, he was going to tell the story and that was that. He fought to control his voice; even so, when he spoke, it was choked with righteous indignation: "Dean Lowell, I am not referring to people having a few innocent drinks with their friends in a comfortable room with a fireplace. I'm talking about sin and degradation! I'm talking about youngsters perhaps from here at Craven committing lewd and indecent acts. Children no older than my Janice putting on sexual exhibitions with dirty old men watching and participating."