e entirely wrong in my assumptions, but I
believe that there is something there that requires my attention."

"Come along," said Bolton. "I'll get you in and let you listen, but the
rest we'll have to trust to luck on. You may have to wait until
morning."

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," replied the Doctor. "I'll
get a little stuff together that we may need."

In a few moments he had packed some apparatus in a bag and, taking up it
and an instrument case, he followed Bolton and Carnes down the stairs
and out onto the grounds of the Bureau of Standards.

"It's a beautiful moon, isn't it?" he observed.

Carnes assented absently to the Doctor's remark, but Bolton paid no
attention to the luminous disc overhead, which was flooding the
landscape with its mellow light.

"My car is waiting," he announced.

"All right, old man, but stop for a moment and admire this moon,"
protested the Doctor. "Have you ever seen a finer one?"

"Come on and let the moon alone," snorted Bolton.

"My dear man, I absolutely refuse to move a step until you pause in your
headlong devotion to duty and pay the homage due to Lady Luna. Don't
you realize, you benighted Christian, that you are gazing upon what has
been held to be a deity, or at least the visible manifestation of deity,
for ages immemorial? Haven't you ever had time to study the history of
the moon-worshipping cults? They are as old as mankind, you know. The
worship of Isis was really only an exalted type of moon worship. The
crescent moon, you may remember, was one of her most sacred emblems."

* * * * *

Bolton paused and looked at the Doctor suspiciously.

"What are you doing--pulling my leg?" he demanded.

"Not at all, my dear fellow. Carnes, doesn't the sight of the glowing
orb of night influence you to pious meditation upon the frailty of human
life and the insignificance of human ambition?"

"Not to any very great degree," replied Carnes dryly.

"Carnesy, old dear, I fear that you are a crass materialist. I am
beginning to despair of ever inculcating in you any respect for the
finer and subtler things of life. I must try Bolton. Bolton, have you
ever seen a finer moon? Remember that I won't move a step until you have
carefully considered the matter and fully answered my question."

Bolton looked first at the Doctor, then at Carnes, and finally he looked
reluctantly at the moon.

"It's a fine one," he admitted, "but all