many
seconds.

Yet the people apparently did not know that anything unusual was
happening. Many perhaps were puzzled because their watches seemed to
be misbehaving but this did not stop their conversation as they
traveled home from theaters or night clubs. Two white-haired men
passed by, engaged in a discussion of business affairs. Their voices
were pitched so low that they were almost inaudible to the trio of
watchers, while their gestures looked like the slow waving of the
antennae of deep sea plants.

* * * * *

"My God, man!" cried Baron, at last awakening from his horror-stricken
silence. "Why didn't you warn the world? This is criminal. If what you
say is true, all these people will become rooted in their tracks at
six o'clock like--like characters from 'The Sleeping Beauty.'"

"I only discovered the danger a week ago while working out a chemical
formula." Manthis' eyes showed the strain he was enduring. "It was a
very delicate piece of work having to do with experiments I am making
on chlorophyl--quick adjustments, you know. I'd done the thing before
many times, but last week I couldn't mix the ingredients fast enough
to get the necessary reaction. Puzzled, I made further experiments.
The result was that I discovered my perception of time was slowing
down. I tested June and found the same thing. There was but one
conclusion."

"But the drug we are using. How did you hit on that?"

"I recalled that such drugs as hashish greatly speed up the time
sense. An addict is able to review his entire past life or plan an
elaborate crime between two heartbeats. So I collected a small supply
of the stuff."

"But hashish in large doses is deadly, and I've heard that users of it
sooner or later develop homicidal mania--run amuck as they say in
India."

"True enough," admitted the chemist, "but Andrev, the Russian, you
know, recently worked out a formula to neutralize the deadly effects
of the drug but retain its time-expanding effect for medical purposes.
I've added that to the pure drug. There isn't enough of it in New York
to keep all these people normal for five minutes. Why should I have
frightened the poor things?"

He relapsed into silence and the others found no heart to ask further
questions as they watched the coming of the end of a world. The
procession of passers-by had thinned somewhat by now. The street
lights had grown dim. There was a look of increasing puzzlement on t