The first thing that people saw when they got to the University was the shining golden Dome, rising above the trees, and looking about the same as it did on matchbook covers, decals, and freshman orientation manuals. The trees covered the view of the thing that held up the Dome. The thing was called the Main Building.
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The Main Building was built in the 1870's and wandered across a large portion of the Main Quadrangle. At first glance, the impression would be that someone had taken an ink blot for a blueprint, or tired to spell the university monogram in bricks, and then had built upwards from there. The building, with a basement and four main floors (not counting turrets and chimney-pots) was an architectural joke. The numerous corners thrust themselves out everywhere, and in some cases retreated into dark recesses where they played ring-around-the-courtyard with some cannonballs mounted in stone. The windows, framed in heavy wooden arches, stared out in every direction, and in some cases, at each other, while on the roof was an idiot swarm of turrets, chimneys, and gadgets. The whole thing was built of a nauseous yellow brick, native to the region, and was honored with a wide main staircase and a useless front porch. Of course there is the Dome; but one does not associate it with the Main Building.
Of course, the interior presented a contrast with the outside. The interior was not faced with yellow bricks. Otherwise, however, the outer dinginess was outdone by the dusky interior. The first floor walls were enlivened by some fading murals depicting the life of Columbus, and the floor was finished in a crumbling mosaic pattern. The basement (or ground floor) was floored with terrazzo, and the second and third floors had been made in such a way that it would have caused widespread panic if anyone knew what materials had been used. The corridors met in the center of the building at a gaping hole, which reached from the top of the Dome to the first floor, and was protected by a series of railings. Each railing was flanked by four niches without statues, and if one leaned dangerously far out, the mural inside the Dome could be seen . The top floor had been abandoned for a long time, and the Geology Department on the third floor was in a dangerous position, since its rooms were full of rocks of various sizes and weights. The last time a drawer full of rocks had been dropped, the president's office below had found most of its ceiling on the floor. However, the building was unquestionably valuable, since there was no room anywhere else for the classrooms and offices that were there. The building was full of records and data, the care of which employed many pretty young girls and many pretty old ladies from the town.
The clean appearance of the building has always been maintained by the employment of a number of small Slavic men who worked in and around the building; they swept, mopped, and tried to catch people smoking in the wrong places. But its structural soundness was inapproachable, for it had been appraised in 1922 by one of the leading engineers in the state. After he had looked the building over, reported his findings, and collected his fee, he left in a great hurry, even leaving his briefcase behind. A few teachers and students, however, have periodically expressed doubts about the building's strength. For example, years ago, an architect who said his name was Wright said that the Main Building would be lucky to last another ten years. But he was scoffed at by the leading engineers of the University, who had the last word in the matter, of course. Therefore he was dismissed, and never heard from again. However, every now and then, when a board broke under pressure or a railing came loose, people began to wonder.
II.
Lester Rundle stood in the Office of Student Accounts admiring the unsightly murals. Lester, a short young man in a blue double-breasted suit, had come to the Main Building to have his schedule changed. He was a freshman in the College of Engineering, and wanted his only Arts and Letters course exchanged for something more constructive, such as Advanced Cantilever Bridges or Blueprinting II. This would fit more exactly into his plan for a college education, and entrench him more firmly in a specialized pattern, which would prove very lucrative in the future. Already very set in his ways, he would tolerate no departures from his establish pattern.
A middle-aged woman suddenly appeared in one of the windows of the partition surrounding the main office.
"May I help you, sir?"
"Yes, I wish to have my schedule changed."
"The Office of Academic Affairs is upstairs."
"Thank you."
Lester walked out of the office and went up the rear stairway, which would take him to the main floor. But while he was doing this, two apparently unrelated events were happening elsewhere in the building. One occurred in the basement, the other on the third floor.
In one of the dark, seldom-visited sub-cellars of the building, a janitor named Ladislaus Kareckywicz was making his rounds. He inspected the moldering stone arches and moss-covered brick walls, and while he was doing this, something caught his eye. In one of the crumbling recesses of the wall, a brick was sticking out several inches from the rest. Muttering something in Polish about how much he was expected to do around this place, he inspected this brick and picked inquisitively at the loose mortar around it. Finally, muttering again in Polish, he gave the brick a jerk which brought it cleanly out of its place in the wall and stirred up a fine cloud of dust which eddied out of the opening. Noticing what a fine doorstep it would make, the janitor turned the brick over in his hands, humming to himself.
Meanwhile, on the third floor, the second event was taking place. In the Geology Department, a preofessor was carrying a fine, large sepecimen of iron ore to his desk, when he tripped on an upturned board. The rock, of course, fell resoundingly onto the flor as the preofessor was sent sprawling. He picked himself up, and carefully place the rock on a nearby table, while he surveyed the damag. There has been no sounds of falling plaster from the floor below, and the board on which he had tripped was not completely ripped loose. Deciding not to mention the incident, the professor went about his business. But far below things were beginning to happen.
Just as Ladislaus was about to take the brick upstairs, he heard a sharp crack, followed by a series of clicking sounds. He turned toward the place where the brick had been, and saw a very unusual sight. As he watched, the bricks began to settle, one on top of the other, so that a series of V's was formed by the bricks, with the base of the lowest V resting in the place where Ladislaus had found the protruding brick. When the bricks had stopped falling, there was another crack, and then the wall began to lean forward until it seemed that the whole thing would come crashing down; then it caught abruptly on something which caused a rain of dust and bits of plaster. Watching all this, Ladislaus was horrified. As soon as he could bring himself to do something, he grabbed a board lying nearby, and used it to support the shuddering mass of masonry. His next impulse, of course, was to do the Polish equivalent of getting the hell out of there. Which he did.
Ladislaus ran up the stairs, through the ground floor, and up the stairs, to the main floor. The first person he met was Lester Rundle, who was still looking for the Office of Academic Affairs. The fleeing janitor paused long enough to blurt some rapid Polish imperatives at the surprised freshman, and then made a dash for the door. However, Lester would not allow this strange happening to go unexplained, so he overhauled the janitor as he was almost out the door, and demanded an explanation. Seeing himself cornered, Ladislaus began to explain in very thick English that the building was going to collapse and that they had better get out. Still not satisfied with this information, and considering himself able to handle foreigners and other inferior races, Lester pressed for details. By way of explanation, the janitor grabbed Lester by the arm and hurried him back down the stairs toward the scene of the disaster, all the while talking as incoherently as possible. When they reached the scene of the disaster, Ladislaus indicated the situation with a wave of his hand.
"Look," he said.
Lester took in the situation at a glance. Not only was this one section of the wall collapsing, but the ones around it, also. Without delving very deeply into his store of engineering knowledge, Lester knew that it was only a matter of time now. Something essential would give in a little while, and then… catastrophe! Meanwhile, however, an attempt must be made to evacuate the building, thought Lester, and the first one to go had better be this panic-stricken janitor, who was getting more nervous with every minute.
"You may leave now," said Lester.
"Good-byes," said Ladislaus.
Now that he was alone, Lester began to plan the evacuation. Calmness was paramount, since nothing but chaos would result from running up and down the corridors and shouting. Keeping this in mind, Lester decided to look for someone to help him spread the news.
On the main floor, the first person he met was an elderly man, obviously a professor, who was walking briskly along, puffing on an empty pipe. He approached this gentleman as if he were going to ask him the time.
"Pardon me, sir, but you'd better leave. The building is about to fall down."
The professor turned a sardonic eye on Lester.
"Oh?" he said. "Then before I leave I'd better tell Henny-penny that the sky is falling." With that he turned and walked away.
Obviously, thought Lester, this is not the way to go about things. The best thing to do would be to inform someone with authority, possibly the president of the University. So, by way of inquiring at one of the offices nearby, he found his way to the president's office.
In the waiting room of the president's office, a pretty young secretary in dark-rimmed glasses was pecking vigorously at a typewriter. Lester entered quietly and began to speak.
"Pardon me, miss, but I have an important matter to see the president about."
Without looking up from the typewriter, the secretary responded. "Do you have an appointment?"
"No, but..."
"You can't see the president without an appointment. Besides he's out. If it can't wait, fill out this card, and I'll leave it on his desk."
Deciding that this was better than nothing, Lester filled out a little white card in his precise style of lettering, and deposited it on the secretary's desk. Then he made another attempt.
"Perhaps I'd better tell you what the matter is. It seems that the..."
Sweeping her typewriter carriage back with a quick hand motion, the secretary looked up and spoke in an irritated voice. "Please, can't you see I'm busy? I have to have this letter done in triplicate and I don't have much time. You'll have to come back later."
A little while after Lester left the office, a small yellow slip reached the desk of the president (who was still out). It read:
MEMO
From: Outer office
To: Inner office
Re: Building about to fall down. Suggest immediate vacuation.
Meanwhile, Lester had found his way back to the Office of Student Accounts, where he had been in the first place. The same woman who had talked to him before appeared at the window.
"Can't they help you up at Academic Affairs?" she queried.
"Well, No...uh, that is…. I have something important to tell you."
"Can it be worked out on the IBM machine?"
"You don't understand. The building is going to fall down."
"It's been that way for years, young man, but there's no call for you to make nasty cracks about it. Now if you haven't anything constructive to say, you'd better go, because I have work to do." With that she shut the window, leaving Lester standing open-mouthed outside. After a minute or so, he went out.
Lester walked sullenly back to the main floor, and as he descended the stairway, he felt the whole thing shake a little, and somewhere down below there was an ominous noise. He decided to give it on more try, this time using a last-resort method. Walking quickly to the place where the great "well" extended upwards through four floors to the dome, Lester stood directly in the center of the floor, raised his head and shouted.
"GET OUT EVERYBODY, THE BUILDING'S GOING TO FALL DOWN!"
After his voice had ceased echoing, there was a dead silence. Then a head shot out from the top of the second floor railing, and a male voice said sweetly, "Your voice sounds lovely under the dome, doesn't it, dear?" Then the head disappeared, and the silence continued. Lester stood there for about a minute, then started for the stairway. Suddenly he stopped short.
"Oh fiddlesticks," said Lester Rundle, and with that he turned and left. As he descended the wide main stairway which fronted the building (which undergraduates were not supposed to do, by custom), he heard the clock striking four. I've go work to do, he thought.
About four o'clock the main building fell down.
