were fairly thick, he wiped them
carefully and put them on again as if to get a clearer picture of an
unexpected situation. His long fingered hand went through his greying
hair and then down the cheek which was sallow, stained with the atabrine
from his latest malaria attack and badly in need of a shave. His mouth
formed a big "O" of surprise as nervously he said:

"I don't get it. I don't understand this business at all. First the
Department of Agriculture extends an urgent letter of invitation to a
completely forgotten man out there in the Never-Never land. Then almost
on the heels of the letter the government sends a plane. I would have
been glad to mail to the Department samples of "Ant-termes Pacificus"
sufficient for most scientific purposes if they needed them for
experiments in termite control; that would have been the simple and the
sensible thing to do. But no, they want everything I have; you fellows
drop out of the sky with a sort of habeas corpus and a whole wrecking
crew. You disturb the lives of my species, which took me ten years to
breed; you pack up their mounds lock, stock and barrel. And then you
drop me at some place I never even heard about--Cephalon. What is this
Cephalon, anyway? If the place had any connotations to entomology, I
would have known about it...."

* * * * *

The flight engineer glanced at the irritated scientist curiously and
sympathetically: "If you don't know, I couldn't tell you what it's all
about myself, I'm sure," he said slowly. "Cephalon--Cephalon is a place
alright, but it doesn't show on the map. Sort of a Shangri-la, if you
know what I mean."

This cryptic statement failed to have a calming effect on Lee.
"Nonsense," he frowned. "If it is an inhabited place it must be on the
map and if it isn't on the map the place doesn't exist."

"Look here," the flight engineer pointed through the window to the
horizon ahead. "What do you think this is, doctor, a mirage?"

Lee stared at the apparition which swiftly materialized out of the
ground haze at the plane's supersonic speed. "It _does_ look like a
mirage," he said judiciously. "Is that Cephalon?"

The engineer nodded. "Prettiest little town in the U. S. for my money.
Ideal airport, too. Rather unusual though--I mean the architecture. Take
a good look while we're circling around for the come-in signal."

Pretty and unusual were hardly the words for it, Lee thought, as he
gazed in admirati