Standing braced—or, as it seemed to him, crucified—against the length of the blackboard, John Ward tried to calculate his chances of heading off the impending riot. It didn't seem likely that anything he could do would stop it. "Say something," he told himself. "Continue the lecture, talk !" But against the background of hysterical voices from the school yard, against the brass fear in his mouth, he was dumb. He looked at the bank of boys' faces in front of him. They seemed to him now as identic