Strictly Speaking

Earthquakes and glass flowers apparently never caused much concern among the architects of the University Museum. The massive horizontal timbers which support the several floors are not firmly attached to the walls. Instead, each end of the beam rests in an iron sling which is in turn suspended from a stout "bracketlike" bar, anchored in the wall masonry. All of which leaves the beam free to move in its supporting sling.

It would seem then that an earth tremor sufficiently violent to cause these supporting beams to slip out of their slings would be all that is required to detach the floors and precipitate glass flowers, meteorites, and pale-ontological exhibits into the basement. In any case Geology students working in the Museum have long been advised to depart from the promises at the first rumblings.

The sacking of the Dunster Funsters' broadcasting studio in Lowell House: At the first peals of Dunster's bells, coincident with the Fly Club's winter dinner, Colonel Apted set out upon the most methodical search of each room of the Tower entry of Lowell House, seeking the transmitting center. After some fifteen minutes his quest led him to the fifth floor suite, wherein lay his blatant quarry.

Breaking through two barricaded doors in commendable fashion, Colonel Apted found himself in the living room of the broadcasting suite. In front of him a member of the transmitting staff was assembling chairs as if to block his passage, while in the adjoining bedroom he caught a glimpse of the transmitting apparatus.

While making his way through the living room Apted noted that the door leading into the bedroom was being closed and locked. He forced this door (his third) and entered the bedroom which had been evacuated. Opposite was another door leading into a lavatory which had also been barricaded. Striding up to this, he forced the lock (his fourth). He then acquainted the trapped Dunster Funsters with the seriousness of their crime, and withdrew--with four forced doors to his credit.