"No one is excused here," he announced. "Your attention, please."
Lampley let his hand fall. The children rustled and squirmed.
"I have here a button," said the teacher. "It is not a true button but a sort of courtesy button. It is in fact a mere plug, connected by the demon of electricity to an ingenious apparatus located in the antipodes of the Flowery, Middle or Celestial Kingdom. By pressing this button I can cause the instant and painless demise of an anonymous foreign devil. I repeat, the operation will cause the big-nosed one no distress at all; he will know nothing. By pushing the button I destroy him; also I bring untold happiness to all the sons of Han, whose ricebowls will then be full, whose fields, wives and concubines will be fertile, whose lords and tax-gatherers will become unbelievably merciful. My problem: shall I press the button?"
He leaned back triumphantly in his chair and took from a desk drawer a bowl and chopsticks. Steam ascended from the bowl as the teacher deftly picked out long strings of noodles and sucked them into his mouth. Lampley could smell the sharp odor of the soup in the bowl. The class was silent while the teacher ate.
He put down the bowl and laid the chopsticks across it. "It is an ethical problem, you understand. Luckily, since I am unfitted for manual tasks—" he held up his fingernails for them to see "—I am absolved from considering it. I shall never have to press the button or not press the button."
Lampley raised his hand again.
"I told you no one is excused here," said the teacher.
"I was young," protested Lampley.
The teacher turned away disgustedly. He wrote on the blackboard in angular, unconnected letters, "Death knows no youth."