The desks still were there, and chairs ringed the copy table.

Our feet left trails across the dust that lay upon the floor and raised a cloud that set us both to sneezing.

I made a beeline for one dark corner of the room; there I knew I would find what I was looking for.

Old bound files of the paper. Their pages crackled when I opened them, and the paper was so yellowed with age that in spots it was hard to read.

I carried one of the files to a window and glanced at the date. September 14, 2143. Over three hundred years ago!

A banner screamed: 'Relief Riots in Washington.' Hurriedly we leafed through the pages. And there, on the front pages of those papers that had seen the light more than three centuries before, we read the explanation for the silent city that lay beyond the shattered, grime-streaked windows.

'Stocks Crash to Lowest Point in Ten Years!' shrieked one banner. Another said: 'Congress Votes Record Relief Funds.' Still another: 'Taxpayers Refuse to Pay.' After that they came faster and faster. 'Debt Moratorium Declared'; 'Bank Holiday Enforced': 'Thousands Starving in Cleveland'; Jobless March on Washington'; 'Troops Fight Starving Mobs': 'Congress Gives Up, Goes Home': 'Epidemic Sweeping East'; 'President Declares National Emergency':

'British Government Abdicates'; 'Howling Mob Sweeping Over France'; 'U.S. Government Bankrupt.'

In the market and financial pages, under smaller heads, we read footnotes to those front-page lines. Story after story of business houses closing their doors, of corporations crashing, reports on declining trade; increasing unemployment, idle factories.

Civilization, three hundred years before, had crashed to ruin under the very weight of its own superstructure. The yellowed files did not tell the entire story, but it was easy to imagine.

'The world went nuts,' said Herb, 'Yeah,' I said. 'Like that guy who took the dive.'