But they weren't staring at Harry Bettis. They were staring at Johnny. Their mouths had flapped open, their eyes were big and round. Johnny didn't, but Harry Bettis knew that look on a girl's face. Without any trouble at all, Johnny could have made any of those girls, right there, right then, without even trying. They gawked and gawked. One of them pointed at the window. The others tried to, but their hands were trembling. The one who was pointing squawked: "Look!" The second one said, "Out the window!" The third one said, "Will you!" Outside the window on the twenty-fifth of July it was snowing. * * * * * It was an hour later. Telephones were ringing. Long-distance calls from all over the country now that the ticker had gone out with the incredible fact that it was snowing in the Northeast in July. Most of the calls, though, were from Washington. Chief Botts disconnected the PBX and walked in a dazed, staggering fashion to Johnny, smiling weakly and saying: "Sloman, I misjudged you. Genius, right here, right now, in this office, and we never knew it. Sloman, I have to admit I was wrong about you. But how did you know? How did you ever know?" "Hell's bells," Harry Bettis said before Johnny could say it was all a mistake. "That's easy, Chief. Anyone knows that _all_ rain starts out as snow. It's got to. You see, the droplets of moisture in the cold upper regions of a cloud condense around dust particles because the air up there is too cold to hold them as vapor. Since it's below freezing, snow is formed--snow which warms up as it passes through hotter air en route to the ground, and--" "That will be quite enough, Bettis," Chief Botts said. "I am a weatherman too, you know. You don't have to tell me the most elementary of--" "In this case, Chief," Bettis persisted, "the biggest inversion layer you ever saw kept the surface air down and brought the cold upper air very close to the surface. Result: the snowflakes didn't have a chance to melt, not even to freezing rain. Result: snow!" "The chances of that happening," said Chief Botts coldly, "are about one in a billion. Aren't they, Sloman, dear fellow?" "One in two billion," Johnny said. "He _is_ modest," Chief Botts told the staff. "He seems so unconcerned." Just then Maxine came into the little office. The look of awe on her face had been replaced by one of sheer amazement. "Well, I checked it, Chief," she said. "Wait until I tell Jo-Anne!" "Won't you please tell us first?" Chief Botts asked. "Yes, sir," said Maxine, and read from the memo pad in her hand. "Since coming to work for the Bureau, Johnny Sloman has once every ten days made our official forecast. I have checked back on his forecast, Chief, as you directed. Johnny has made fifty-five forecasts. While only one of them--startlingly--has called for snow in July--every single one of them has been right."