“A meeting of the council at nine o’clock in the morning, Stanton,” Dirk said abruptly. “I told Sears I would notify you.”
“I thought that we would be called together very soon,” said Stanton. “It’s concerning that damn thing up there.”
“Perhaps,” agreed Dirk carelessly. “Well,” he added, “I believe that I will hop home and get some sleep.”
“Sleep!” exclaimed Stanton. “Sleep? On a night like this?”
“Oh, Dirk,” pleaded Inga, “stay here with me, won’t you? I am not going to bed because I just know that I wouldn’t be able to close my eyes.”
“Let him go, Inga, if he wants to sleep,” urged Stanton. “I will stay here and keep watch with you.”
“––and if order is not restored in the streets of Manhattan within the course of a short time, the authorities will resort to morphite gas to quell the turbulence and rioting––”
“The streets must be frightfully congested,” said Inga. “It is the first occasion in a long time that the police have had to threaten the use of morphite.”
“––we do not want to alarm people unnecessarily but we have to report,” came the hurried voice of the broadcaster, “that the monstrous mass that has been hanging above the city just made a sudden drop of five thousand feet and again came to a stop. It is now a little more than six miles over Manhattan and––again it has dropped. This time it fell like a plummet for twelve thousand feet. It is now about twenty thousand feet, some four miles, above Manhattan and––”