They each had their own room and all. They were both around seventy years old,or even more than that. They got a bang out of things, though–in a haif-assed way, ofcourse. I know that sounds mean to say, but I don’t mean it mean. I just mean that I usedto think about old Spencer quite a lot, and if you thought about him too much, youwondered what the heck he was still living for. I mean he was all stooped over, and hehad very terrible posture, and in class, whenever he dropped a piece of chalk at theblackboard, some guy in the first row always had to get up and pick it up and hand it tohim. That’s awful, in my opinion. But if you thought about him just enough and not toomuch, you could figure it out that he wasn’t doing too bad for himself. For instance, oneSunday when some other guys and I were over there for hot chocolate, he showed us thisold beat-up Navajo blanket that he and Mrs. Spencer’d bought off some Indian inYellowstone Park. You could tell old Spencer’d got a big bang out of buying it. That’swhat I mean. You take somebody old as hell, like old Spencer, and they can get a bigbang out of buying a blanket.His door was open, but I sort of knocked on it anyway, just to be polite and all. Icould see where he was sitting. He was sitting in a big leather chair, all wrapped up inthat blanket I just told you about. He looked over at me when I knocked. Who’s that? heyelled. Caulfield? Come in, boy. He was always yelling, outside class. It got on yournerves sometimes.The minute I went in, I was sort of sorry I’d come. He was reading the AtlanticMonthly, and there were pills and medicine all over the place, and everything smelledlike Vicks Nose Drops. It was pretty depressing. I’m not too crazy about sick people,anyway. What made it even more depressing, old Spencer had on this very sad, ratty oldbathrobe that he was probably born in or something. I don’t much like to see old guys intheir pajamas and bathrobes anyway. Their bumpy old chests are always showing. Andtheir legs. Old guys’ legs, at beaches and places, always look so white and unhairy.Hello, sir, I said. I got your note. Thanks a lot. He’d written me this note asking me tostop by and say good-by before vacation started, on account of I wasn’t coming back.You didn’t have to do all that. I’d have come over to say good-by anyway.Have a seat there, boy, old Spencer said. He meant the bed.I sat down on it. How’s your grippe, sir?M’boy, if I felt any better I’d have to send for the doctor, old Spencer said. Thatknocked him out. He started chuckling like a madman. Then he finally straightenedhimself out and said, Why aren’t you down at the game? I thought this was the day of thebig game.It is. I was. Only, I just got back from New York with the fencing team, I said.Boy, his bed was like a rock.He started getting serious as hell. I knew he would. So you’re leaving us, eh? hesaid.Yes, sir. I guess I am.He started going into this nodding routine. You never saw anybody nod as muchin your life as old Spencer did. You never knew if he was nodding a lot because he wasthinking and all, or just because he was a nice old guy that didn’t know his ass from hiselbow. What did Dr. Thurmer say to you, boy? I understand you had quite a little chat.Yes, we did. We really did. I was in his office for around two hours, I guess.What’d he say to you?Oh. . . well, about Life being a game and all. And how you should play itaccording to the rules. He was pretty nice about it. I mean he didn’t hit the ceiling oranything. He just kept talking about Life being a game and all. You know.Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it.Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, thenit’s a game, all right–I’ll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren’tany hot-shots, then what’s a game about it? Nothing. No game. Has Dr. Thurmer writtento your parents yet? old Spencer asked me.He said he was going to write them Monday.Have you yourself communicated with them?No, sir, I haven’t communicated with them, because I’ll probably see themWednesday night when I get home.And how do you think they’ll take the news?Well. . . they’ll be pretty irritated about it, I said. They really will. This is aboutthe fourth school I’ve gone to. I shook my head. I shake my head quite a lot. Boy! Isaid. I also say Boy! quite a lot. Partly because I have a lousy vocabulary and partlybecause I act quite young for my age sometimes. I was sixteen then, and I’m seventeennow, and sometimes I act like I’m about thirteen. It’s really ironical, because I’m six foottwo and a half and I have gray hair. I really do. The one side of my head–the right side–is full of millions of gray hairs. I’ve had them ever since I was a kid. And yet I still actsometimes like I was only about twelve. Everybody says that, especially my father. It’spartly true, too, but it isn’t all true. People always think something’s all true. I don’t give adamn, except that I get bored sometimes when people tell me to act my age. Sometimes Iact a lot older than I am–I really do–but people never notice it. People never noticeanything.Old Spencer started nodding again. He also started picking his nose. He made outlike he was only pinching it, but he was really getting the old thumb right in there. I guesshe thought it was all right to do because it was only me that was in the room. I didn’t care,except that it’s pretty disgusting to watch somebody pick their nose.Then he said, I had the privilege of meeting your mother and dad when they hadtheir little chat with Dr. Thurmer some weeks ago. They’re grand people.Yes, they are. They’re very nice.Grand. There’s a word I really hate. It’s a phony. I could puke every time I hear it.Then all of a sudden old Spencer looked like he had something very good,something sharp as a tack, to say to me. He sat up more in his chair and sort of movedaround. It was a false alarm, though. All he did was lift the Atlantic Monthly off his lapand try to chuck it on the bed, next to me. He missed. It was only about two inches away,but he missed anyway. I got up and picked it up and put it down on the bed. All of asudden then, I wanted to get the hell out of the room. I could feel a terrific lecture comingon. I didn’t mind the idea so much, but I didn’t feel like being lectured to and smell VicksNose Drops and look at old Spencer in his pajamas and bathrobe all at the same time. Ireally didn’t. It started, all right. What’s the matter with you, boy? old Spencer said. He said itpretty tough, too, for him. How many subjects did you carry this term?Five, sir.Five. And how many are you failing in?Four. I moved my ass a little bit on the bed. It was the hardest bed I ever sat on.I passed English all right, I said, because I had all that Beowulf and Lord Randal MySon stuff when I was at the Whooton School. I mean I didn’t have to do any work inEnglish at all hardly, except write compositions once in a while.He wasn’t even listening. He hardly ever listened to you when you saidsomething.I flunked you in history because you knew absolutely nothing.I know that, sir. Boy, I know it. You couldn’t help it.Absolutely nothing, he said over again. That’s something that drives me crazy.When people say something twice that way, after you admit it the first time. Then he saidit three times. But absolutely nothing. I doubt very much if you opened your textbookeven once the whole term. Did you? Tell the truth, boy.Well, I sort of glanced through it a couple of times, I told him. I didn’t want tohurt his feelings. He was mad about history.You glanced through it, eh? he said–very sarcastic. Your, ah, exam paper isover there on top of my chiffonier. On top of the pile. Bring it here, please.It was a very dirty trick, but I went over and brought it over to him–I didn’t haveany alternative or anything. Then I sat down on his cement bed again. Boy, you can’timagine how sorry I was getting that I’d stopped by to say good-by to him.He started handling my exam paper like it was a turd or something. We studiedthe Egyptians from November 4th to December 2nd, he said. You chose to write aboutthem for the optional essay question. Would you care to hear what you had to say?No, sir, not very much, I said.He read it anyway, though. You can’t stop a teacher when they want to dosomething. They just do it.The Egyptians were an ancient race of Caucasians residing inone of the northern sections of Africa. The latter as we allknow is the largest continent in the Eastern Hemisphere.I had to sit there and listen to that crap. It certainly was a dirty trick.The Egyptians are extremely interesting to us today forvarious reasons. Modern science would still like to know whatthe secret ingredients were that the Egyptians used when theywrapped up dead people so that their faces would not rot forinnumerable centuries. This interesting riddle is still quitea challenge to modern science in the twentieth century.He stopped reading and put my paper down. I was beginning to sort of hate him.Your essay, shall we say, ends there, he said in this very sarcastic voice. You wouldn’t think such an old guy would be so sarcastic and all. However, you dropped me a littlenote, at the bottom of the page, he said.I know I did, I said. I said it very fast because I wanted to stop him before hestarted reading that out loud. But you couldn’t stop him. He was hot as a firecracker.DEAR MR. SPENCER he read out loud. That is all I know aboutthe Egyptians. I can’t seem to get very interested in themalthough your lectures are very interesting. It is all rightwith me if you flunk me though as I am flunking everythingelse except English anyway.Respectfully yours, HOLDEN CAULFIELD.He put my goddam paper down then and looked at me like he’d just beaten hellout of me in ping-pong or something. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive him for reading methat crap out loud. I wouldn’t’ve read it out loud to him if he’d written it–I really wouldn’t.In the first place, I’d only written that damn note so that he wouldn’t feel too bad aboutflunking me.Do you blame me for flunking you, boy? he said.No, sir! I certainly don’t, I said. I wished to hell he’d stop calling me boy allthe time.He tried chucking my exam paper on the bed when he was through with it. Only,he missed again, naturally. I had to get up again and pick it up and put it on top of theAtlantic Monthly. It’s boring to do that every two minutes.What would you have done in my place? he said. Tell the truth, boy.Well, you could see he really felt pretty lousy about flunking me. So I shot thebull for a while. I told him I was a real moron, and all that stuff. I told him how Iwould’ve done exactly the same thing if I’d been in his place, and how most people didn’tappreciate how tough it is being a teacher. That kind of stuff. The old bull.The funny thing is, though, I was sort of thinking of something else while I shotthe bull. I live in New York, and I was thinking about the lagoon in Central Park, downnear Central Park South. I was wondering if it would be frozen over when I got home,and if it was, where did the ducks go. I was wondering where the ducks went when thelagoon got all icy and frozen over. I wondered if some guy came in a truck and took themaway to a zoo or something. Or if they just flew away.I’m lucky, though. I mean I could shoot the old bull to old Spencer and thinkabout those ducks at the same time. It’s funny. You don’t have to think too hard when youtalk to a teacher. All of a sudden, though, he interrupted me while I was shooting the bull.He was always interrupting you.How do you feel about all this, boy? I’d be very interested to know. Veryinterested.You mean about my flunking out of Pencey and all? I said. I sort of wished he’dcover up his bumpy chest. It wasn’t such a beautiful view.If I’m not mistaken, I believe you also had some difficulty at the WhootonSchool and at Elkton Hills. He didn’t say it just sarcastic, but sort of nasty, too.I didn’t have too much difficulty at Elkton Hills, I told him. I didn’t exactlyflunk out or anything. I just quit, sort of.