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I left my visions with a sigh and continued my way across the Park. The prolonged spell of heat was affecting the vegetation. The trees were dusty; and the grass seemed to have lost something of its brilliant green. I remember that after I had crossed the Broad Walk I noticed especially how moribund all the plant-life of the Park appeared to be. There was an air of decline about it, though no tints of autumn had yet appeared in the leaves.

Wotherspoon was, as usual, in his laboratory. The glass of the windows had been replaced; but otherwise the place was much in its disordered condition. I suspect that he had purposely refrained from getting it cleared up, in order to impress reporters with the actual damage which the explosion had done; and that when the reporters had ceased to call he had left things as they were with the idea of fascinating any visitors who might come.

He was sitting at his writing-desk, surrounded by piles of books from which he was apparently extracting information for the purpose of some fresh article he had in hand; and when I came in he asked me to excuse him for a few minutes until he had got his data completed. In order to amuse me in the meanwhile, he dragged out his microscope and a pile of slides which he thought might interest me.