t expected it to be there. It was not part of the
habitual pattern. He had seen a window. He had, moreover, looked
through a window. What had he seen? He thought about this, and at the
same time he thought about being sick--administratively sick. He
succeeded in working up a palpable fever and a windy yawning beneath
the diaphragm. Before taking any action he would have to confirm what
he had seen through the window of the lavatory.

On his last trip to the lavatory he climbed up onto the slippery
washbasin and looked through the high window. His position there would
be impossible to explain, of course, if anyone should come in. He was
past caring about that. The unpasteurized air made him a little drunk
and the sound--the immense distant sighing groan like a giant's
whisper--filled his brain. It made him want to expand to meet it
somehow.

Only one immense skeleton foot was visible, but there was no question
about exactly what it was.

No conventional structure would curve upward in that way. There was no
point of reference by which to determine how far away it was, and the
air was blue with haze, giving everything an appearance of remoteness
and of unreality. He had never seen the city from that angle before,
but if what he saw was what he thought it was, how could it have been
so close without his knowing about it before this time? It was a thing
which belonged to vast distances--spatial distances and other kinds of
distance as well. Now it was close, or he was closer to it than he had
ever imagined he would be in his life.

It was accessible.

Dewforth left at half past three when the somnolence of afternoon was
heaviest on the heads of the other draftsmen. He did not speak to Mr.
Shrank about it. He did not clear with Miss Plock in the dispensary,
nor with Mr. Fert in Personnel, nor with Miss Yurt in Wage
Readjustment, nor with Miss Bort in Sick Leave Subdivision, nor with
Miss Vibe in Special Problems, nor with Mr. Pfister in Sick Claims,
nor with Miss Grope in Employee Grievances, nor with Miss Rupnick in
Company Grievances, nor with Miss Guggward in Allowance Reductions,
nor with Mr. Droon in Privilege Curtailment, nor with Miss Tremulo in
Psychological Counseling, nor with Dr. Schreck in Spiritual Aid
Subdiv.

He did not even trouble to see Miss Nosemilker who kept the time book.

He just left.

III

"Nobody goes up there," said the hulking oyster-eyed man in the burlap
overcoat.

The bum