The grass closed about its base like a false foundation
and surged on to new conquests, leaving the monolith bare and forlorn in
its new surroundings. At first the weed satisfied itself with jocular
and teasing ventures up the smooth sides; then, as though rasped by the
skyscraper's quiescence, it forced its way into the narrow space between
the steel sash, filling the lower floor and bursting out again in a riot
of whirling tendrils. Up the sides it climbed like some false ivy;
clinging, falling back, building upon its own defeated body until it
reached another story--and another and another. At each one the tale was
repeated: windows burglariously forced, a floor suffocated, egress
effected, and another height of wall scaled. At the end the proud
structure was a lonely obelisk furred in a green covering to the very
flagpole on its peak, from which waved disappointed yet still aspiring
runners.

Upward and outward continuously, empty lot, fillingstation, artistic
billboard, all alike to the greedy fingers. Like thumb and index they
formed a crescent, a threatening semicircle, reaching forward by
indirection. Northward and southeastward, the two aqueducts kept the
desert from reclaiming its own; for fifty years the city had scraped up,
bought, pilfered or systematically robbed all the water it could get;
through the gray, wet lines, siphons, opencuts, pumps, lifts, tunnels,
the metropolis sucked life. Now the desert had an ally, the grassy
fingers avoided the downtown district, feeling purposefully and
dangerously toward the aqueducts.

I spent much of my time, when not actively watching the grass, in the
_Intelligencer_ office. I had now agreed to write articles for several
weekly magazines, and though they edited my copy with a heavy and
unappreciative hand, still they never outraged me as Le ffacase did by
causing another man to usurp my name. Since I was in both senses
nominally a member of the staff, I had no qualms about using the
journal's typewriters and stationery for the construction of little
essays on the grass as seen through the eyes of one who had cause to
know it better than anyone else.

"The-uh curse of Garry-baldi be upon the head of that ee-veal man who-uh
controls this organeye-zation," rolled out Gootes in pseudoChurchillian
tones. "The-uh monster has woven a web; we are-uh summoned, Bertie."

I got up resignedly and followed him to the managingeditor's office. We
were not greeted directly. Ins