ness I was delirious and I'm sure I afforded my nurses
plentiful occasion to snicker at the ravings of someone of no
inconsiderable importance as he lay helpless and sick. "Paper and
pencil, you kep callin for, Mr Weener--an you that elpless you couldnt
old up your own and. You said you ad to write a book--the Istory of the
Grass. To purge yourself, you said. Lor, Mr Weener, doctors don't
prescribe purges no more--that went out before the first war."

I never had a great deal of patience with theories of psychology--they
seem to smack too much of the confessional and the catechism. But as I
understand it, it is claimed that there exists what is called an
unconscious--a reservoir of all sorts of thoughts lurking behind the
conscious mind. The desires of this unconscious are powerful and tend to
be expressed any time the conscious mind is offguard. Whether this
metaphysical construction be valid or not, it seemed to me that some
such thing had taken place while I was sick and my unconscious, or
whatever it was, had outlined a very sensible project. There was no
reason why I shouldnt write such a history as soon as I could take the
time from my affairs. Certainly I had the talent for it and I believed
it would give me some satisfaction.

My pleasant speculations and plans for this literary venture were
interrupted, as was my convalescence, by the loss of the Sahara depots.
When I got the news, my principal concern wasnt for the incalculable
damage to Consolidated Pemmican. My initial reaction was amazement at
the ability of the devilgrass to make its way so rapidly across a
sterile and waterless waste. In the years since its first appearance it
had truly adapted itself to any climate, altitude, or condition
confronting it. A few months before, the catastrophe would have plunged
me into profound depression; now, with the resilience of recovery added
to Miss Francis' assurance, it became merely another setback soon to be
redeemed.

From Senegal, near the middle of the great African bulge, to Tunis at
the continent's northern edge, up through Sardinia and Corsica, the
latest front of the Grass was arrayed. It occupied most of Italy and
climbed the Alps to bite the eastern tip from Switzerland. It took
Bavaria and the rest of Germany beyond the Weser. Only the Netherlands,
Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal--a geographical purist might have
added Luxembourg, Andorra and Monaco--remained untouched upon the
Continent. Into t