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