hunger, but hilarious with delight at the discovery that his metallic form was not a delirium tremens delusion induced by the quart of gin he had absorbed on the night before the change.

The giant birds, which Beeville had professionally named "tetrapteryxes," seemed to have vacated the city with the appearance of the colonists. Even the nest Roberts had stumbled on proved deserted when an expedition cautiously revisited the place; and the memory of the birds had sunk to the level of a subject for idle remarks when a new event precipitated it into general attention.

Massey, the artist, with all the time in the world, and the art supplies of New York under his finger, had gone off on an artistic jag, painting day and night. One morning he took his canvas to the top of the Daily News building to paint the city at dawn from its weather-observation station. The fact that he had to climb stairs the whole way up and finally chisel through the door at the top was no bar to his enthusiasm. Kevitz, hurrying down Lexington Avenue in a car to join his fellow mariners in investigating the machinery of a freighter, saw him in the little steel cage, silhouetted against the reddening light of day.

There was an informal rule that everyone should gather at the Institute at ten in the evening, unless otherwise occupied, to report on the day's events, and when Massey did not appear two or three people made comments on the fact, but it was not treated as a matter of moment. When the artist had not shown up by dawn of the next day, however, Murray and Gloria went to look for him, fearing accident. As they approached the building Murray noticed that the edge of the weather observation platform was twisted awry. He speeded up his car, but when they arrived and climbed the mountainous flights of stairs he found no bent and damaged form, as he had expected.

The roof of the building held nothing but the painting on which he had been working—a half-completed color sketch of the city as seen from the tower.

"Where do you s'pose he went?" asked Gloria.

"Don't know, but he went in a hurry," replied Murray. "He doesn't care about those paintings much more than he does about his life."

"Maybe he took a tumble," she suggested. "Look, there's his easel, and it's busted."

"Yes, and that little chair he totes around, and look how it's all twisted out of shape."

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