" ... the demand made by a committee of quite understandably outraged churchmen, led by Msgr. Loyola O'Tootle, of St. Plimsol's Roman Catholic Cathedral, that an atomic bomb be used to disperse the sacrilege is, of course, impractical, as such a bomb, in the caliber now being stored by our government, would destroy not only the cloud mass in question (presumably) but (predictably) the entire city of Chicago for a radius of four miles. Any smaller atomic bomb is no more to be thought of in connection with the riddance of this bizarre pest, as not only demolitional but genetic effects.... "To sum up, the mass seems to consist merely of cloud material, somewhat more densely packed than usual. Its formational aspects cannot be traced to any conceivable person or device. Its violation of certain simple physical laws is the great scientific puzzle of it. But it is definitely not poisonous or harmful. The only 'danger' to be expected from it, so far as the most elaborate examination and the most learned extrapolation can discern, is psychological. Until science explains the phenomenon, the layman should regard it without dismay--or other emotion, if possible. Doubtless when the formed-mass principle is unraveled the explanation will not only be quite simple, but of some currently unguessable great value to engineering, to industry, to the military, and hence to the whole people." Dr. Cummings's job was detached, thorough--and satisfied nobody. For it was a statement of absolute mystification. Auburn-haired little Jeanne Sheets, aged seven, of Mallow Road Apartments, running into her yard that afternoon, cried, "Mummy, there's a dirty word in the sky!" "Yes, dear." "Who put it there?" "Mummy doesn't know, dear." "Can I say it? It's in the sky--real big." "No, dear." "Maybe God put it there?" "You mustn't think things like that, you naughty child!" Jeanne Sheets knew as much about it as Cummings, or any other physicist or any meteorologist, or anybody. The next day, through unimpeachable sources in Sofia, a world that had been amused--and somewhat agog--learned that, over the city of Moscow had appeared: МАЈІАРХЍ The smile on the world's face faltered. Why? Here the subtleties of the human spirit are evinced. People were stunned for the obvious reason that the appearance of an expletive over the Soviet capital tended to indicate _human_ enmity was not involved in the phenomenon. There was a deeper reason. The Moscow affliction gave universality to what had been, thitherto, an ailment of the skies over the guilty-feeling democracies. The profanation of the Soviets, in other words, eliminated all subconscious hope of escape into the Opposite, that natural area which the aware mind detests, or at least resists, but upon which the instincts depend. Laughter ceased and the world made up its mind that steps had to be taken instantly to solve, resolve, and dissolve the indecent chimera.