ester went back to thinking about the morning's
service.

The Goddess had appeared only long enough to impart her blessing, but
her calm, beautifully controlled contralto voice had brought a sense of
peace to everyone in the auditorium. To be doggedly practical, there was
no way of knowing whether the Goddess's presence was an appearance--in
person, or an "appearance" by Divine Vision. But that really didn't
matter. The effect was always just the same.

Forrester went on out the front portals of the Temple of Wisdom and down
the long, wide steps onto Fifth Avenue. He paid homage with a passing
glance to the great Owls flanking the entrance. Symbolic of Athena, they
had replaced the stone lions which had formerly stood there.

The street was busy with hurrying crowds, enlivened here and there by
Temple Myrmidons--from the All-Father, from Bacchus, from Venus--even
one from Pallas Athena herself, a broad-beamed swaggerer whom Forrester
knew and disliked. The man came striding up the steps, greeted Forrester
with a bare nod, and disappeared at top speed into the Temple.

Forrester sighed and glanced south, down toward 34th Street, where the
huge Tower of Zeus, a hundred and four stories high, loomed over all the
other buildings in the city.

At eighteen hundred he would be in that tower--for what purpose, he had
no idea.

Well, that was in the future, and he ...

A voice said: "Well! Hello, Bill!"

Forrester turned, knowing exactly what to expect, and disliking it in
advance. The bluff over-heartiness of the voice was matched by the gross
and hairy figure that confronted him. In some disarray, and managing to
look as if he needed simultaneously a bath, a shave, a disinfecting and
a purgative, the figure approached Forrester with a rolling walk that
was too flat-footed for anything except an elephant.

"How's the Owl-boy today?" said the voice, and the body stuck out a
flabby, hairy white hand.

Forrester winced. "I'm fine," he said evenly. "And how's the
winebibber?"

"Good for you," the figure said. "A little wine for your Stomach's sake,
as good old Bacchus always says. Only we make it a lot, eh?" He winked
and nudged Forrester in the ribs.

"Sure, sure," Forrester said. He wished desperately that he could take
the gross fool and tear him into tastefully arranged pieces. But there
was always Gerda. And since this particular idiot happened to be her
younger brother, Ed Symes, anything in the nature of viole