_48._ George Thario having shown in many ways he was growing stale on the job and in need of a vacation, I decided to take him with me. Besides, if the thought of using the weed as a source of cheap rawmaterial came to anything, the engagement of his interest at an early stage would increase his usefulness. Before setting out for the field I read reports of investigators on the spot and was disquieted to note a unanimous mention of new stirrings on the edges of the green glacier. I decided to lose no time and we set out at once in my personal plane for a mountain lodge kindly offered by a business acquaintance. Here, for the next few weeks, keeping in touch with my manifold affairs only by telephone, Joe and I devoted ourselves to observing the grass. Or rather I did. George Thario's idea of gathering data differed radically from mine--I feel safe to say, as well as from that of almost any other intelligent man. In a way he reminded me of the cameraman Slafe in his brooding obliviousness to everything except the grass; but Slafe had been doing a job for which he was being paid, whereas Joe was only yielding to his own mood. For hours he lay flat on his belly, staring through binoculars; at other times he wandered about the edge, looking at, feeling, and smelling it and once I saw him bend down and nibble at it like a sheep. "You know, A W," he observed enthusiastically--he always called me "A W" with just enough of a curious intonation to make it doubtful whether the use of the initials was respectful or satirical--"you know, A W, I understand those fellows who went and chucked themselves into the grass. It's sublime; it has never happened in nature before. Ive read newspaper and magazine accounts and either the writers have no eyes or else they lie for the hell of it. They talk about the 'dirty brown' of the flowers, but A W, Ive seen the flowers myself and theyre a vivid glorious purple. Have you noticed the iridescent sparkle when the wind ripples the blades? All the colors of the spectrum against the background of that marvelous green." "There's nothing marvelous about it," I told him a little irritably. "It used to be really green, a bright, even color, but up here where it's high and cold it doesnt look much different from ordinary devilgrass--dirty and ugly." I thought his enthusiasm distinctly out of place in the circumstances. He did not seem to hear me, but went on dreamily, "And the sounds it makes! My God, A W, a composer'd give half the years of his life to reproduce those sounds. High and piercing; soft and muted; creating tonepoems and etudes there in its lonely grandeur."