the whirr of sea-planes and the soft hum of Sabbath traffic
and the dry slither of a myriad grating palm-fronds in the
trade-wind's wake--to the preacher's words.

The space of shaded grass, between lane and hotel-grounds and
bandstand, was starred by white-clad children, and by men who
sprawled drowsily upon the springy turf, their straw hats
tilted above their eyes. The time was mid-February. The
thermometers on the Royal Palm veranda registered
seventy-three. No rain had fallen in weeks to mar the
weather's perfection.

"Scientists are spending $5,000,000 to send an expedition into
Africa in search of the 'missing-link'!" the orator was
thundering. "It would be better for them to spend all or part
of that money, in seeking closer connection with their
Heavenly Father, than with the Brutes!"

A buzz of approval swept the listeners. That same buzz came
irritatingly to the ears of a none-too-sprucely dressed young
man who lay, with eyes shut, under the shifting shade of a
giant palm, a hundred yards away. He had not caught the
phrase which inspired the applause--thanks to the confusion of
street sounds and the multiple dry rattle of the palm-fronds
and the whirring passage of a sea-plane which circled above
park and bay. But the buzz aroused him.

He had not been asleep. Prone on his back, hat pulled over
his upper face, he had been lying motionless there, for the
best part of an hour. Now, stretching, he got to his feet in