autiful and unaffected by the
machinations of its attackers. I could almost have wept as I traced its
sloping sides upward to the rounded peak on top. Reversing all previous
impressions, it now appeared to be the natural inhabitant and all the
houses, roadways, pavements, fences, automobiles, lightpoles and the
rest of the evidences of civilization the intruders.

But even as I looked at it so eagerly it moved and wavered and I heard
the muffled boom of explosion. The roof trembled and windows rattled
with diminishing echoes. The noise was neither a great nor terrifying
one and I distinctly remember thinking it quite inadequate to the
occasion.

I believe all of us there, when we heard the report, expected to see a
vast hole where the grass had been. I'm sure I did. When it was clear
this hadnt happened, I continued to stare hard, thinking, since my
highschool physics was so hazy, I had somehow reversed the relative
speed of sight and sound and we had heard the noise before seeing the
destruction.

But the green bulk was still there.

Oh, not unchanged, by any means. The smooth, picturebook slope had
become jagged and bruised while the regular, evenlyrounded apex had
turned into a sort of phrygian cap with its pinnacle woundedly askew.
The outlines which had been sharp were now blurred, its evenness had
become scraggly. The placid surface was vexed; the attempt on its being
had hurt. But not mortally, for even with outline altered, it remained;
defiant, certain, inexorable.

The air was filled with small green particles whirling and floating
downward. Feathery, yet clumsy, they refused to obey gravity and seek
the earth urgently, but instead shifted and changed direction, coyly
spiraling upward and sideways before yielding to the inevitable
attraction.

"At least there's less of it," observed Gootes. "This much anyway," he
added, holding a broken stolon in his fingers.

"_Cynodon dactylon_," said Miss Francis, "like most of the family
Gramineae, is propagated not only by seed, but by cuttings as well. That
is to say, any part of the plant (except the leaves or flowers)
separated from the parent whole, upon receiving water and nourishment
will root itself and become a new parent or entity. The dispersion of
the mass, far from making the whole less, as our literary friend so
ingenuously assumes, increases it to what mathematicians call the _n_th
power because each particle, finding a new restingplace unhampered b