Description
FOR MORE than ten minutes the plane had been circling over the airport and the passengers were growing restive; the baby in front had begun to cry. Down below the immensely sprawling city was all but drowned in yellow, sulphurous smog, a soiled grey blanket of fumes hung from the smoke-stacks of the industrial districts, while the sun, presumably setting in orange-streaked travel-folder splendour over the Pacific, remained invisible.
"Looks like the hell," the young man with the curious eyes and the funny little beard remarked to his neighbour.
"Feels like it too," Mr. Hillman said morosely; he was disgusted with the stale taste of his own breath and did not quite trust his stomach. The young man laughed softly. "Scusate" he said; "oftentimes I employ wrong word. I speak no good the English." As he placed a large, brown, long- fingered hand on Mr. Hillman's knee, a fine draught of fresh air seemed to pass through the cabin and Mr. Hillman felt momentarily somewhat better. "I smoke too much," he muttered, "bad for my stomach. Three packs a day-much too much."
"Why?" asked the young man.
"What d'you mean why? Just take another look out of the window. Do you know what you see down there? A number- one target for the Russian A-bomb."
"Be not scared, Bud," said the young man. He spoke a queer accent, at once harsh and foreign-sounding and yet with familiarly colloquial overtones.
ISBN:MUSTARDSEEDVI
