tween
Denker； a gifted student who had failed into being the brutal and brutalizing
headmaster of a turn…of…the…century New England prep school； and Gary Benson；
the student he sees as a younger version of himself。 Phyllis had written back
expressing interest and admonishing him to read O'Casey before sitting down to
it。 She had written again earlier that year asking where the hell was the play？
He had written back wryly that The Little School had been indefinitely — and
perhaps infinitely — delayed between hand and page 〃in that interesting
intellectual Gobi known as the writer's block。〃 Now it looked as if she might
actually get the play。 Whether or not it was any good or if it would ever see
actual production was another matter。 And he didn't seem to care a great deal
about those things。 He felt in a way that the play itself； the whole thing； was
the roadblock； a colossal symbol of the bad years at Stovington Prep； the
marriage he had almost totaled like a nutty kid behind th