At the moment, however (so uncritical was his brain and so unrelated was the celestial phenomenon to his thoughts), he came to a different conclusion. When the N established itself as a clear and sharply defined capital letter, some two miles in length and many thousands of feet above Lake Michigan, Calk informed himself that it was, actually, the work of a sky-writer. This is a kind of rationalization which any psychologist will recognize. Because what he saw did not quite conform to his past experience, Calk discounted his sensory impression and interpreted an external fact in terms of orderly recollections rather than of observable reality. Donner, Bates, Breesteen, Cavanaugh, Cohen and Wilstein, among other authorities, have noted the similiarity of this process to that by which prejudices are often established. "Look, honey," Mr. Calk called to his fiancée. "Sky-writer." Miss Lurp looked and nodded in agreement. "Yeah. Bet it's cold up there! Lucky fellow--the pilot." No one else in the vicinity appeared to be aware of the process overhead. Miss Lurp continued to wade--Mr. Calk to watch her and to cast an occasional glance at the sky. A letter U was slowly formed alongside the perfect N. Miss Lurp at this point stepped on a clamshell, or possibly a broken bottle, which hurt her foot although it did not break the skin. Exaggerating the injury, she hopped ashore to solicit comfort, which Mr. Calk readily supplied. Thereafter, sitting side by side, they gazed up at the NU, near which yet other clouds were shifting and shaping themselves. "Why," said Miss Lurp, "that's not sky-writing at all! It's just the clouds coming together accidental-like." To another couple, sitting on the sand nearby, she called, "Look, people! The clouds are having a spelling bee!" One upturned countenance, or even two, may not serve to divert a throng from its preoccupations, whether sordid or sublime. But four faces intently elevated will permeate any mass of people and constrain nearly all of the individuals in it to join. This contagion of curiosity now spread over the beach. Soon, persons everywhere--on the sand and the walk behind and in the water--bathers, loafers, nurses with perambulators on the Drive, and policemen who were supposed to patrol it but who were more attentive to the nurses--looked up to see, in a vast blue area above, three letters: NUT