"Mr. Lood, Mr. Lood," I yelled. "Can you hear me?"
"Wall too thick, yus," came a muffled answer.
And indeed it was. I had not noticed it, but the wall was expanding
sideways as well. I was calculating the approximate thickness when it
went up and through the roof of the courtroom.
Fortunately it was a nice sunny day.
* * * * *
However, this was no time to sunbathe and I dashed towards the hole in
the courtroom wall, where Lood's wall had gone through.
I just got out before a buttress, coming out the wall at right angles,
blocked the gap. I remembered something Lood had said about the
automatic creation of full-scale houses on a simple standard plan: two
rooms, a toilet and a patio.
Outside, the wall was well on the way towards completing its second
simple house. This side of the wall was, that is. I could only assume
it was doing something similar on the other side. There was no way of
getting round and seeing, except by outstripping the wall in a sprint.
I gathered my breath and dignity and ran very rapidly down the length
of the wall, round the far mounting tiers of brick, advancing now on
the State Library, and back to where I had left the Commissioners and
Mr. Lood.
I was faced by a thicket of patios and arched doorways and low-roofed
houses.
"Your Honors, Your Honors," I called hopefully, walking into the maze,
in the general direction of what appeared to be an old and ruined war
monument. It then occurred to me that this was the outer wall of the
courthouse. It stood far off, pointing a stone finger to the sky, as if
going down in a sea of brick for the third time.
"Your Honors, Your Honors...."