The first figure the newspaper reporter approached listened to the questions in surprise. Then he answered: "Well I dunno. I just came into the park and lay down." The second figure looked blank and shook its head. The reporter tried a third. The third figure grinned and answered: "Oh, well, nothing much to do and the grass rests you a bit." The reporter kept on for a few minutes, asking his questions and getting answers that didn't quite mean anything. Then he grew tired of the job and returned to his original place on the grass and lay down again and stared up into the colors of the sky. After a half-hour, during which he had thought of nothing in particular, he arose, shook his legs free of dirt and grass and walked away. As he walked he looked at the figures that remained. The arc lamps on the park shafts and on the Greek-like fountain were popping on and the avenue was lighting up like a theater with the footlights going on. "Funny about them," the newspaper reporter thought, eyeing the figures as he moved away; "they lie there on their backs all in the same position, all looking at the same clouds. So they must all be thinking thoughts about the same thing. Let's see; what was I thinking about? Nothing," An excited light came suddenly into the newspaper reporter's eyes. "I was just waiting," he muttered to himself. "And so are they." * * * * * The newspaper reporter looked eagerly at the street and the people passing. That was it. He had found the word. "Waiting." Everybody was waiting. On the back porches at night, on the front steps, in the parks, in the theaters, churches, streets and stores--men and women waited. Just as the men on the grass in Grant Park were waiting. The only difference between the men lying on their backs and people elsewhere was that the men in the grass had grown tired for the moment of pretending they were doing anything else. So they had stretched themselves out in an attitude of waiting, in a deliberate posture of waiting. And with their eyes on the sky, they waited. The newspaper reporter felt thrilled as he thought all this. He felt thrilled when he looked closely at the people in Michigan Avenue and saw that they fitted snugly into his theory. He said to himself: "I've discovered a theory about life. A theory that fits them all. That makes the background I'm looking for. Waiting. Yes, the whole pack of them are waiting all the time. That's why we all look alike. That's why one house looks like another and one man walking looks like another man walking, and why figures lying in the grass look like twins--scores of twins." * * * * *