rapidly mounting body had risen to the
height of forty feet.

* * * * *

An excited voice raised itself above the general hubbub.

"Why, I know him! I know him! It's Edgar Wesley! Doctor Edgar Wesley!"

A police sergeant turned to the man who had spoken.

"And it--he knows you? Then go closer to him, and--and--ask him what it
means."

But the man looked fearfully at the giant and hung back. Even as they
talked, his gigantic body had grown as high as the four-storied
buildings lining the Square, and his feet were becoming too large for
the place where they had first been put. And now a faint smile could be
seen on the giant's face, an enigmatic smile, with something ironic and
bitter in it.

"Then shout to him from here," pressed the sergeant nervously. "We've
got to find out something! This is crazy--impossible! My God! Higher
yet--and faster!"

Summoning his courage, the other man cupped his hands about his mouth
and shouted:

"Dr. Wesley! Can you speak and tell us? Can we help you stop it?"

The ring of people looked up breathless at the towering figure, and a
wave of fear passed over them and several hysterical shrieks rose up as,
very slowly, the huge head shook from side to side. But the smile on its
lips became stronger, and kinder, and the bitterness seemed to leave it.

There was fear at that motion of the enormous head, but a roar of panic
sounded from the watchers when, with marked caution, the growing giant
moved one foot from the grass into the street behind and the other into
the nearby base of Fifth Avenue, just above the Arch. Fearing harm,
they were gripped by terror, and they fought back while the trembling
policemen tried vainly to control them; but the panic soon ended when
they saw that the leviathan's arms remained crossed and his smile kinder
yet. By now he dwarfed the houses, his body looming a hundred and fifty
feet into the sky. At this moment a woman back of the semicircle slumped
to her knees and prayed hysterically.

"Someone's coming out of his house!" shouted one of the closest
onlookers.

* * * * *

The door of the house from which the giant had first appeared had
opened, and the figure of a middle-aged, normal-sized man emerged. For a
second he crouched on the steps, gaping up at the monstrous shape in the
sky, and then he scurried down and made at a desperate run for the
nearest group of policemen.

He grip