The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Scientist Rises, by Desmond Winter Hall

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Title: A Scientist Rises

Author: Desmond Winter Hall

Illustrator: Hans Waldemar Wessolowski

Release Date: December 9, 2008 [EBook #27464]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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A Scientist Rises

By D. W. Hall

"The face of the giant was indeed that of a god...."

On that summer day the sky over New York was unflecked by clouds, and
the air hung motionless, the waves of heat undisturbed. The city was a
vast oven where even the sounds of the coiling traffic in its streets
seemed heavy and weary under the press of heat that poured down from
above. In Washington Square, the urchins of the neighborhood splashed in
the fountain, and the usual midday assortment of mothers, tramps and
out-of-works lounged listlessly on the hot park benches.

[Illustration: _All gazed, transfixed, at the vast form that towered
above them._]

As a bowl, the Square was filled by the torrid sun, and the trees and
grass drooped like the people on its walks. In the surrounding city, men
worked in sweltering offices and the streets rumbled with the
never-ceasing tide of business--but Washington Square rested.

And then a man walked out of one of the houses lining the square, and
all this was changed.

He came with a calm, steady stride down the steps of a house on the
north side, and those who happened to see him gazed with surprised
interest. For he was a giant in size. He measured at least eleven feet
in height, and his body was well-formed and in perfect proportion. He
crossed the street and stepped over the railing into the nearest patch
of grass, and there stood with arms folded and legs a little apart. The
expression on his face was preoccupied and strangely apart, nor did it
change when, almost immediately from the park bench nearest him, a
woman's excited voice cried:

"Look! Look! Oh, look!"

The people around her craned their necks and stared, and from them grew
a startled murmur.