Shaken and thoughtful, I went back to my car and drove homeward, reflecting on the fortuitousness of human actions. Had I not answered Miss Francis' ad someone else would have been the agent of calamity; had Mrs Dinkman been away from home that day another place than hers, or perhaps no place at all, might have been engulfed. On the other hand, I might still be searching for a chance to prove my merit to the world. It seemed to me suddenly man was but a helpless creature afterall. _15._ It wasnt until I was almost at my own frontdoor I remembered the purpose of my visit, which was not to draw philosophic conclusions, but to order my impressions so the columns of the _Daily Intelligencer_ might benefit by the reactions of one so closely connected with the spread of the devilgrass. I began tentatively putting sentences together and by the time I got to my room and sat down with pencil and paper, I was in a ferment of creative activity. Now I cannot account for this, but the instant I took the pencil in my fingers all thought of the grass left my mind. No effort to summon back those fine rolling sentences was of the least avail. I slapped my forehead and muttered, "Grass, grass, Bermuda, _Cynodon dactylon_" aloud, varying it with such key words as "Dinkman, swallowing up, green hill" and the like, but all I could think of was buying a tire (700 x 16) for the left rear wheel, paying my overdue rent, Gootes' infuriating buffoonery, the possibilities for a man of my caliber in Florida or New York, and with a couple of thousand dollars a nice mailorder business could be established to bring in a comfortable income.... I left the chair and walked up and down the cramped room until the lodger below rapped spitefully on his ceiling. I went to the bathroom and washed my hands. I came back and inspected my teeth in the mirror. Then I resumed my seat and wrote, "The Grass--" After a moment I crossed this out and substituted, "Today, the grass--" I decided the whole approach was unimaginative and unworthy of me. I turned the paper over and began, "Like a dragon springing--" Good, good--this was the way to start; it would show the readers at once they were dealing with a man of imagination. "Like a dragon springing." Springing from what? What did dragons spring from anyway? Eggs, like snakes? Dragons were reptiles werent they? Or werent they? Give up the metaphor? I set my teeth with determination and began again. "Not unlike a fierce and belligerently furious dragon or some other ferocious, blustery and furious chimerical creature, a menacing and comminatory debacle is burning fierily in the heart of our fair and increasingly populous city. As one with an innocent yet cardinal part in the unleashing of this dire menace, I want to describe how the exposure of this threatening menace affected me as I looked upon its menacing and malevolent advance today...."