They moved along slowly, looking out over the dim meadows heaped with unstirring forms. “Perhaps,” admitted Annan, who had been addressed as Barry, “the mass story is about what you outlined, Mike; but there are other stories there----” He made a slight gesture toward the meadow, “The whole gamut from farce to tragedy....” “The only drama in that mess is rooted in stupidity.” “That’s where all tragedy is rooted.... I could step in among those people and in ten minutes I could bring back material for a Hugo, a Balzac, a Maupassant, a Dumas----” “Why don’t you? It’s your job to look for literary loot in human scrap heaps. Here’s life’s dumping ground. You’re the chiffonier. Why not start business?” “I’m considering it.” “Go to it,” laughed the other, lighting a cigarette and leaning gracefully on his walking stick. “Yonder’s the sewer; dig out your diamond. Uproot your lily!” Annan said: “Do you want to bet I can’t go in there, wake up one of those unwashed, and, in ten minutes, get the roots of a story as good as any ever written?” “If you weren’t in a class by yourself,” said the other, “I’d bet with you. Any ordinary newspaper man could go in there and dig up a dozen obvious news items. But you’ll dig up a commonplace item and turn it into an epic. Or you’ll dig up none at all, and come back with a corker----” “I’ll play square----” “I know _you_! The biggest story in the world, Barry, was born a punk little news item; and it would have died an item except for the genius who covered it. You’re one of those damned geniuses----” “Don’t try to hedge!----” “Don’t tell _me_! Nothing ever really happens except in clever brains. I can condense Hamlet’s story into a paragraph. But I’m glad Shakespeare didn’t. I’m glad the Apostles were----” “You’re a crazy Irishman, Coltfoot,” remarked Annan, looking about him at the thousands of spectral sleepers. “Shut up. I need a story and I’m going to get one.... You don’t want to take my bet, do you?” “All right. Ten dollars that you don’t get the honest makings of a real story in ten minutes. No faking! No creative genius stuff. Just bald facts.” He looked at his wrist-watch, then at his companion. “Ready?” Annan nodded, glanced out over the waste of withered grass. As he stepped from the asphalt to the meadow a tepid breeze began to blow, cooling his perspiring cheeks. A few sleepers stirred feverishly. Under a wilted shrub a girl lifted her heavy head from the satchel that had pillowed it. Then, slowly, she sat upright to face the faint stir of air. Her hat fell off. She passed slim fingers through her bobbed hair, ruffling it to the cool wind blowing. Annan walked directly toward her, picking his way across the grass among the sleeping heaps of people. As he stopped beside her, Eris looked up at him out of tired eyes which seemed like wells of shadow, giving her pinched face an appearance almost skull-like.