* * * * *

The newspaper man's thoughts form a conclusion.

"It's true, then," he thought, "the world's becoming as stupid as it
looks. People are drying up inside with facts, figures, dollar signs. This
man and his party would have got as much out of their cross-country trip
if they'd all been blindfolded and shot through a tunnel two thousand feet
under the ground. Man is like an audience and he has walked out on mystery
and adventure. The show kind of tired him. And got his goat. It would have
been a good yarn otherwise, the motor vagabonds. I'd have ended with
Hovey's verse:

"I must forth again tomorrow,
With the sunset I must be
Hull down on the trail of rapture
In the wonder of the sea."

Mumbling the lines to himself, the newspaper man strode on through the
crowded loop with a sudden swagger in his eyes.



NIRVANA


The newspaper man felt a bit pensive. He sat in his bedroom frowning at
his typewriter. About eight years ago he had decided to write a novel. Not
that he had anything particular in his mind to write about. But the city