“Right, Chief,” said Tom, putting a morning paper on the counter.

The Chief glanced at the headlines without enthusiasm—rumbles of war, labor crises, political strife. He felt a stirring of pride at his own international profession in which you were pitted against natural forces, not your fellow-men. By association of thought he glanced out of the window. A row of electric lights now shone brightly from the flat roof of the Federal Building just across the street; one of the boys must just have gone up to read the instruments. Tom’s clock pointed at four—but that meant noon, Greenwich time. At this minute, everywhere, observers in weather stations were peering at thermometers and barometers and scanning the sky to see how much of it was cloud-covered.

He had a sudden thought of the whole world and all those observers. In London and Paris they would read the instruments and have plenty of time left before lunch. In Rio it was nine in the morning; in New York, seven. Here on the Pacific Coast men turned out sleepily at a very inconvenient hour. But Alaska was even worse off. By the time you got around to New Zealand, the observer most likely stayed up till he read his instruments and went to bed afterward. The Japs had an easy time of it—about nine in the evening. In Bombay it might be sundown; in Athens and Cape Town, early afternoon. Ships at sea changed hours as they moved. And what about the Arctic stations? There it was night all winter anyway, and perhaps a man arranged his private life by whatever time was most convenient.

He came back from his survey of the world as Tom set breakfast before him.

“What’ya goin’ t’give us t’day, Chief?”

“Hn-n? Nothing much today, Tom, I don’t believe.”

“Time y’were scarin’ somethin’ up for us. Sure could use a rain.”

Tom moved off to a new customer. The drought was really getting bad, the Chief reflected, when the proprietor of an all-night-restaurant began talking about it.

Down the counter Tom was obviously telling the newcomer who the other fellow was. The Chief had long known that he was Tom’s most treasured exhibit. He could hear the not-too-well-muffled voice.

“Yessir, that’s Old Weather Man himself.”

“Yu-don’t-say!” The Chief caught the tone of mingled surprise and awe. A lot of people, he knew from experience, never quite sensed any difference between predicting weather and making weather.