America moves fast. Speed has leaped to the fore of our national traits. Elinor Wylie calls it a national fever: Americans, she says, keep the pavements red hot.

Everything is changing. Cambridge even Cambridge hits up the stride. A triumphal arch for the site of the Washington Eim? An hotel to replace Beck Hall? A silver-screen emporium for the Square? The razing of the Rotunda?

Picture then the return of a Harvard graduate on his fifth reunion. An escalator hurtles him up from the bowels of the Square to collide with the Cambridge Savings Bank an architectural grotesque. A bloated "Coop" first jars him; next the Harvard Trust, also pluetocratically swollen. College House seethes with life like a rabbit warren. Beyond, a "movie Palace" Spews forth vibrating masses. Old Massachusetts arrogates, like a parvenu with a monocle. In the offing two small prototypes have popped into being. Next to Matthews there issues the golden clang of the Counting House.

Dazed, he looks for an old landmark. What? No "Pill Box"? Only a traffic policeman marks the spot. With filmed eye and tottering limb, he makes for him. But rashly, for the released traffic leaps forth. Down goes the stranger. The officer's arms gyrate madly. A snort of disgust--"Top slow"!