0 PASS THE time while he waited for Dreiser s signal，<br >Foxe studied the view from the laboratory window.<br >Main Beach， white as detergent powder， reached<br >away in a long scimitar curve， as if some fairly simple<br >equation was drawing it towards the axis where water met<br >sky. The line of it divided the blue of the sea from the<br >green of the shore， and all would have been too dazzling to<br >stare at but for the double-tinted glass of the lab window.<br >The only real interruptions to the curves of colour were the<br >jagged hiccups made by the new hotels of Front Town， each<br >in its own way a sample of tourist architecture at its<br >larkiest and most ebullient. Foxe could never unders tand<br >how any of them had got built. In the six weeks he had<br >been on Hog s Cay no progress at all seemed to have been<br >made on the newest one， which remained about four-fifths<br >finished a few hundred yards along the beach. The same<br >web of irregular scaffolding mottled one wall， and the<br >same man in a yellow singlet and blue jeans lay sprawled<br >on the planking near the top of it. He d only been there<br > for three days， to be fair， but he hadn t moved during that<br > time. Perhaps he was dead， or perhaps just a bundle of<br > bright rags， but most probably he was having a snooze， not<br > unusually long by Island standards.<br > It took a lot to disturb this pervading lethargy， so it<br > was a proof of the day s importance that Foxe could see a<br > man actually working in the foreground of his view. The<br >II<br >