It wasnt till he had urged me inside and up a flight of stairs that I realized the "box" was Miss Francis' apartmenthouse. It had been a logical choice, since its height and ugliness distinguished it even from its unhandsome neighbors. Less than a week had gone by since I had come here for the first time. As I followed Gootes' grasshopper leaps upward at a more dignified pace, I reflected how strangely my circumstances had changed. The shoddily carpeted halls were musty and still as we climbed, except for the unheeded squeaking of a radio someone had forgotten to turn off. You could always tell when a radio was being listened to, for when disregarded it sulkily gave off painfully listless noises in frustration and loneliness. I wasnt at all surprised to find Miss Francis among the spectators crowded on the roof in evidence of having no more important occupation. "I somehow expected you. Have you any new tricks?" she asked Gootes coaxingly. "Ecod, your worship, wot time ave I for legerdemain? Wif your elp, now, I'd be a fine gentleman-journalist, stead of a noverworked ack." "Ha," she said genially, busy with the toothpick, "youll find enough respectable laboratory mechanics eager to cooperate. How long will it be before they shoot, do you know?" Gootes shook his head and I strained my eyes toward the grass. Symmetrical and shimmeringly green, removed as it now was from all connotations of danger by distance and the promise of immediate destruction, it showed serenely beautiful and unaffected by the machinations of its attackers. I could almost have wept as I traced its sloping sides upward to the rounded peak on top. Reversing all previous impressions, it now appeared to be the natural inhabitant and all the houses, roadways, pavements, fences, automobiles, lightpoles and the rest of the evidences of civilization the intruders. But even as I looked at it so eagerly it moved and wavered and I heard the muffled boom of explosion. The roof trembled and windows rattled with diminishing echoes. The noise was neither a great nor terrifying one and I distinctly remember thinking it quite inadequate to the occasion. I believe all of us there, when we heard the report, expected to see a vast hole where the grass had been. I'm sure I did. When it was clear this hadnt happened, I continued to stare hard, thinking, since my highschool physics was so hazy, I had somehow reversed the relative speed of sight and sound and we had heard the noise before seeing the destruction. But the green bulk was still there.