That single word would be about as big a news-story as could break in California. Thousands of people would change their plans; hundreds of industries, big and little, would make adjustments. Money would be spent, wisely and foolishly. The very process of adjustment to that single word would mean damaged property and jeopardized lives. Then, if the rain did not come, everything would be ridiculous anti-climax, with people blaming the weather-man.

Say that he wrote FAIR or even UNSETTLED, and the rain came. Then people would go on with their fair-weather plans, and would be caught wide open. His error might mean millions of dollars’ loss of property and the snuffing out of more lives than a man liked to think about.

There was another point too. In the old days the Weather Bureau made the only forecasts, and people were charitable. But now the air-lines and even some other big corporations had their own meteorologists—bright young fellows trained in technical schools, fresh with all the latest theories, like his own J. M., but with more experience. They talked a jargon about isallobaric ascendents and austausch coefficients; it made the Chief nervous. They referred to a three-day-old polar air-mass as if it were a chick they had seen hatch from an egg. There were even some private agencies selling weather information persuading their clients that it was better than what the Weather Bureau gave away free. Those fellows, it seemed to the Chief, stuck together. When he made a mistake, they pounced on it; when they made mistakes, they argued themselves out. They called him, the Chief knew, “that old fuddy-duddy.” As he looked at the map, he grew hot thinking of it. “Salesmen,” he thought, “not meteorologists!” Then he stopped himself, for he knew that they were meteorologists, and good ones too. He must be a better one, not call them names. He must work to match them in theory, and in the meantime must pit against their equations and diagrams the experience of thirty-five years, which had imprinted upon his memory the pictures of hundreds of weather situations against their dozens. “I can’t maybe remember Grant’s inauguration,” thought the Chief, “but those babies can’t remember Coolidge’s.”

So today he doubly checked all the possibilities. He quickly studied the chart of upper-air winds and temperatures, and the maps showing rise and fall of pressure and temperature. Then he returned to his own map.

The telephone rang. “It’s the Register for the forecast,” said Mr. Ragan.

“Hn-n? Tell ’em to wait ten minutes.”

The Chief sighed, and thought of the Old Master’s favorite quotation: “The duties of this office permit little rest and less hesitation.” Well, ten minutes was enough.