ough he himself were of
least importance. Until aroused. In our days of learning, I saw Georg
once--just once--thoroughly angered.

"... Came up promptly, didn't you?" Georg was saying. He was leading me
to the house doorway, but I stopped him.

"Let's go to the grove," I suggested. We turned down from the small
viaduct, passed the house, and went into the heavy grove of trees
nearby.

"He's hungry," Elza declared. "Jac, did you eat at the office tonight?"

"Yes," I said.

"Did you really?"

"Some," I admitted. In truth the run up here had brought me a thoroughly
hearty appetite, which I just realized.

"I was pretty busy, you know," I added. "Such a night--but don't you
bother."

But she had already scurried away toward the house. Dear little Elza! I
wished then, for the hundredth time, that I was a man of wealth--or at
least, not as poor as a tower timekeeper. True, I made fair money--but
the urge to spend it recklessly dominated me. I decided in that moment,
to reform for good; and lay by enough to justify asking a woman to be my
wife.

We reclined on a mossy bank in the grove of trees, so thick a grove that
it hid the house from our sight.

The doctor extinguished the glowing lights with which the tree-branches
were dotted. We were in the semi-darkness of a beautiful, moonlit night.

"Don't go to sleep, Jac!"

I became aware that Georg and his father were smiling at me.

I sat up, snapping my wits into alertness. "No. Of course not. I guess
I'm tired. You've no idea what the office was like tonight. Roaring."

"I can imagine," Georg said. "You were at Park Sixty when the President
fell, weren't you?"

"Yes. But I wasn't supposed to be. I wasn't assigned to that. How did
you guess?"

"Elza saw you. She had our finder on you--I couldn't push her away from
it." His slow smile was quizzical.

"On me? In all that crowd. She must have searched about very carefully
to----"

I stopped; I could feel my cheeks burning, and was glad of the dimness
there under the trees.

"She did," said Georg.

"I sent for you, Jac," Dr. Brende interjected abstractedly,
"because----"

But Georg checked him. "Not now, father. Someone--anyone--might pick you
up. Your words--or read your lips--there's light enough here to register
on a finder."

The doctor nodded. "He's afraid--you see, Jac, it's these Venus----"

"Father--please. It's a long chance--but why take any? We can insulate
in the house."

The chance t