tators in trembling voices broke the joyful news
over every receivingset and even the stodgiest newspapers brought out
their blackest type to announce GRASS STOPPED!

_33._ The President of the United States, as befitted a farmer knowing
something of grasses on his own account, issued a proclamation of
thanksgiving for the end of the peril which had beset the country. The
stockmarket recovered from funereal depths and jumped upward. In all the
great cities hysterical rapture so heated the blood of the people that
all restraints withered. In frantic joy women were raped in the streets,
dozens of banks were looted, thousands of plateglasswindows were smashed
while millions of celebrants wept tears of 86 proof ecstasy. Torn
tickertapes made Broadway impassable and the smallest whistlestops
spontaneously revived the old custom of uprooting outhouses and perching
them on the church steeple.

I had my own particular reason to rejoice coincident with the stoppage
of the grass. It was so unreal, so dreamlike, that for many days I had
trouble convincing myself of its actuality. It began with a series of
agitated telephone messages from a firm of stockbrokers asking for my
immediate presence, which because of my assignments, failed to reach me
for some time. So engrossed was I in the events surrounding the victory
over the grass I could not conceive why any broker would want to see me
and so put off my visit several times, till the urgency of the calls
began to pique my curiosity.

The man who greeted me was runcible, with little strands of sickly hair
twisted mopwise over his bald head. His striped suit was rumpled, the
collar of his shirt was wrinkled, and dots of perspiration stood out on
his upperlip and forehead. "Mr Weener?" he asked. "Oh, thank God, thank
God."

Completely at a loss, I followed him into his private office. "You
recall commissioning us--when we were located in Pomona--to purchase
some shares of Consolidated Pemmican and Allied Concentrates for your
account?"

To tell the truth, while I had not forgotten the event, I had been
sufficiently ashamed of my rashness to have pushed all recollection of
the transaction to the back of my mind. But I nodded confirmingly.

"No doubt you would be willing to sell at a handsome profit?"

Aha, I thought, the rise of the market has sent Consolidated Pemmican up
for once beyond its usual 1/8. I am probably a rich man and this fellow
wants to cheat me of the fruits