• An Early Twentieth-Century Picnic •

They stood there for a long time watching the house burn down. The flames roared high into the sky. They were so bright that everybody had shadows.

The professor had by now returned to a normal disposition and he had his arms affectionately around his daughters as they watched the house go.

“That was quite a batch of stuff you mixed up there, Professor,” Cameron said.

“Never again,” was the professor’s response.

He had been introduced to Greer and Cameron and he liked them and was very grateful for their having rescued him from the curse of The Chemicals which could also be called the Hawkline Monster.

Eventually they just sat down on the ground and watched the house burn all night long. It kept them warm. The Hawkline sisters changed the loving arms of their father for the arms of Greer and Cameron. The professor sat by himself contemplating the result of all his years of experimenting and how it had led to this conclusion.

From time to time he would shake his head but he was also very glad not to be an elephant foot umbrella stand any more. That was the worst experience he’d ever had in his life.

The butler was sitting there still dumbfounded and brushing the dirt off his clothes. There was a piece of suitcase in his hair.

The way everybody was sitting it looked as if they were at a picnic but the picnic was of course the burning of a house, the death of the Hawkline Monster and the end of a scientific dream. It was barely the Twentieth Century.