"All right. Am I cooking for you tonight?"

"It's Wednesday, isn't it?"

"How soon?"

He glanced at his watch. "Pick you up in eleven minutes."

He felt his whiskers. "No, twelve and a half."

"I'll be ready. Mrs. Megeath says that these regular dates mean that you are going to marry me."

"Pay no attention to her. She's just a statistic. And I'm a wild datum."

"Oh, well, I've got two hundred and forty-seven dollars toward that million. 'Bye!"

Meade's prize was the usual Rosicrucian come-on, elabo- rately printed, and including a photograph (retouched, he was sure) of the much disputed line on the corridor wall which was alleged to prophesy, by its various discon- tinuities, the entire future. This one had an unusual time scale but the major events were all marked on itthe fall of

Rome, the Norman Invasion, the Discovery of America, Na- poleon, the World Wars.

What made it interesting was that it suddenly stopped now.

"What about it. Potty?"

"I guess the stonecutter got tired. Or got fired. Or they got a new head priest with new ideas." He tucked it into his desk. "Thanks. I'll think about how to list it." But he got it out again, applied dividers and a magnifying gla.s.s. "It says here," he announced, "that the end comes late in August unless that's a fly speck."

"Morning or afternoon? I have to know how to dress."

"Shoes will be worn. All G.o.d's chilluns got shoes." He put it away.

She was quiet for a moment, then said, "Potty, isn't it about time to jump?"

"Hub? Girl, don't let that thing affect youl That's 'silly season' stuff."

"Yes. But take a look at your chart."

Nevertheless he took the next afternoon off, spent it in the reference room oi the main library, confirmed his opin- ion of soothsayers. Nostradamus was pretentiously silly,

Mother Shippey was worse. In any of them you could find what you looked for.

He did find one item in Nostradamus that he liked: "The

Oriental shall come forth from his seat . . . he shall pa.s.s through the sky, through the waters and the snow, and he shall strike each one with his weapon."

That sounded like what the Department of Defense ex- pected the commies to try to do to the Western Allies.

But it was also a description of every invasion that had come out of the "heartland" in the memory of mankind.

Nuts!

When he got home he found himself taking down his father's Bible and turning to Revelations. He could not find anything that he could understand but he got fascinated by the recurring use of precise numbers. Presently he thumbed through the Book at random; his eye lit on: "Boast not thy- self of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." He put the Book away, feeling humbled but not cheered.

The rains started the next morning. The Master Plumbers elected Miss Star Morning "Miss Sanitary Engineering" on the same day that the morticians designated her as "The

Body I would Like Best to Prepare," and her option was dropped by Fragrant Features. Congress voted $1.37 to compensate Thomas Jefferson Meeks for losses incurred while an emergency postman for the Christmas rush of i936> approved the appointment of five lieutenant generals and one amba.s.sador and adjourned in eight minutes. The fire extinguishers in a midwest orphanage turned out to be filled with air. The chancellor of the leading football in- st.i.tution sponsored a fund to send peace messages and vita- mins to the Politburo. The stock market slumped nineteen points and the tickers ran two hours late. Wichita, Kansas, remained flooded while Phoenix, Arizona, cut off drinking water to areas outside city limits. And Potiphar Breen found that he had left his raincoat at Meade Barstow's rooming house.

He phoned her landlady, but Mrs. Megeath turned him over to Meade. "What are you doing home on a Friday?" he demanded.

"The theater manager laid me off. Now you'll have to marry me."

"You can't afford me. Meadeseriously, baby, what happened?"

"I was ready to leave the dump anyway. For the last six weeks the popcorn machine has been carrying the place.

Today I sat through I Was A Teen-Age Beatnik twice. Noth- ing to do."

"I'll be along."

"Eleven minutes?"

"It's raining. Twentywith luck."

It was more nearly sixty. Santa Monica Boulevard was a navigable stream; Sunset Boulevard was a subway jam.

When he tried to ford the streams leading to Mrs. Megeath's house, he found that changing tires with the wheel wedged against a storm drain presented problems.

"Potty! You look like a drowned rat."

"I'll live," But presently he found himself wrapped in a blanket robe belonging to the late Mr. Megeath and sipping hot cocoa while Mrs. Megeath dried his clothing in the kitchen.

"Meade . . . I'm 'at liberty,' too."

"Hub? You quit your job?"

"Not exactly. Old Man Wiley and I have been having differences of opinion about my answers for monthstoo much 'Jackpot factor' in the figures I give him to turn over to clients. Not that I call it that, but he has felt that I was unduly pessimistic."

"But you were right!"

"Since when has being right endeared a man to his boss?

But that wasn't why he fired me; that was just the excuse.

He wants a man willing to back up the Know-Nothing pro- gram with scientific double-talk. And I wouldn't join." He went to the window. "It's raining harder."

"But they haven't got any program."

"I know that."

"Potty, you should have joined. It doesn't mean any- thing1 joined three months ago."