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it’s ‘silly season’ stuff, let’s see it.”
    “All right. Am I cooking for you tonight?”
    “It’s Wednesday, isn’t it?”
    “How soon will you get here?”
    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 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. ’By!”
    Meade’s prize to show him was the usual Rosicrucian comeon, elaborately 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 discontinuities, the entire future. This one had an unusual time scale, but the major events were all marked on it—the fall of Rome, the Norman Invasion, the Discovery of America, Napoleon, the World Wars.
    What made it interesting was that it suddenly stopped—in 1952.
    “What about it, Potty?”
    “I guess the stonecutter got tired. Or got fired. Or they hired 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 glass.
    “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 God’s chilluns got shoes.” He put it away.
    She was silent for a moment, then said, “Potty, isn’t it about time to jump?”
    “Huh? Girl, don’t let
that
thing effect you! 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 of the main library, confirmed his opinion of soothsayers. Nostradamus was pretentiously silly. Mother Shippey was worse. In any of them you could find whatever you looked for.
    He did find one item in Nostradamus that he liked: “The Oriental shall come forth from his seat… he shall pass 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 expected 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 he could understand, but he got fascinated by the recurring use of precise numbers. Presently he thumbed through the Book.
    His eye lit on: “Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.”
    He put the Book away, feeling humbled, but not cheered.
    T he rains started the next morning.
    The Master Plumbers elected Miss Star Morning “Miss Sanitary Engineering of 1952” 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 1936, approved the appointment of five lieutenant generals and one ambassador and adjourned in less than eight minutes.
    The fire extinguishers in a mid-west orphanage turned out to be filled with nothing but air.
    The chancellor of the leading football institution sponsored a fund to send peace messages and vitamins 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 Poptiphar 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