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like this under the roof all over the building. Look, here we are at last.” Mr. Maderna’s voice turned thin and flat, its reverberations lost in the great empty spaces of the tower. “We’re right above the memorial corridor now. The trap door to the bell deck is way up there over our heads.”
    They had emerged from the jungle of pipes to find themselves suspended on a narrow wooden catwalk over a void. For a moment they were silent, looking up at the high brick walls rising around them, up and up to the floor of the belfry, and down and down to the curving surfaces of the wooden vaults below. The space contained within the four lofty walls had never been intended for human use. Most of it was filled with another vast system of galvanized iron air-conditioning and ventilating ducts, some of them glittering with silver padding.
    Until now Homer had been silently bringing up the rear, feeling like an Indian in the midst of all the chiefs. But now he was enchanted, and he spoke up. “Oh, isn’t this staggering. Look at those vaults from up here. Wastebaskets! Don’t they look like giant wastebaskets?”
    â€œWastebaskets?” said Frank Harvey.
    â€œLook. See the way they taper down to a point at the bottom, like a container? See those paper cups and lunch bags down there? People working up here have thrown things over the railing. See there: popcorn boxes. Beer cans. Look at all that trash.” Homer threw back his head and laughed, while the others peered solemnly down. “I mean, when you’re standing on the floor of the memorial transept, or whatever you call it, I mean down below, looking up at the vaults, you see all these rising ribs and pointed arches, and you’re filled with religious awe and inspiration, right? When really, just look at that, they’re just a lot of big wastebaskets for old cigarette packages and beer cans.” Homer clutched the railing and the catwalk bounced with his laughter, as the others hung on and tried to see what was funny. “I mean, the way they look like those complicated, mathematical, three-dimensional curves. You know, hyperbolas and parabolas, only all meeting at infinity, you know, those beautiful three-dimensional geometrical constructions with grids making hills and valleys. Oh, noble. You know, now that I really take a look at this building I can see its charm. It’s the sublime and the ridiculous all mixed up together. Grotesquely noble. Nobly grotesque. And what could be more charming than those two things together? I ask you.” The chiefs looked at one another silently and began moving slowly along the catwalk again, while Homer trailed after them, chuckling to himself, shaking his head. “Inside-out vaults. I’m just crazy about upside-down inside-out vaults.”
    Afterwards he tried to explain to Mary and Vick what it had been like. He sat at the kitchen table in the flat on Huron Avenue, eating his third bowl of vegetable soup, describing the open bell chamber at the top of the tower. “There wasn’t any railing, you see, and the asphalt sort of sloped down in the direction of the open arcades all the way around, and it was all slippery with pigeon droppings. Some of McCurdy’s boys were climbing past us into the tower roof to look around up there, and then the bell rang. The clock was striking the hour, and we all nearly fell over the edge with shock and plummeted to our doom. But I hung on to Harvey, and he hung on to Maderna, and Maderna hung on to Oliphant, and Oliphant hung on to Marley, and Marley hung on to Campbell, and Campbell hung on to the corner of a brick with his little finger, so we’re all still here.”
    â€œOh, Homer, my God,” said Vick.
    â€œOh, don’t worry about Homer,” said Mary. “Don’t believe a single word he says.”
    â€œWell, it was really great up there,” said Homer. “You could see all over. The river and