| OCR Text |
Show =167- might have been store mannequins, parked here in some symbolic gesture. He passed them with no more than a sidelong glance, and came in sight of the quadrangle, where there was much running and shouting, but little activity that the Professor could make sense of. Farther away, near the Administration Building, he could see the rim of a large crowd and could hear its noise, like the sounds at a sporting event. As he approached the new wing of the Humanities Building, he could see through a large window that ran two flights up the building wall, a furious mixture of bodies, a pin-wheel of action that seemed to roll from the second floor down the stairway to the landing. As he passed this window, the movement flowed out the door and into the courtyard, where he would have to pass to get to the mall.'room and his office. He was halted in midstride by a flurry of pops, like firecrackers or like the crack of a whip, coming from his right. The jumble of students, or whoever they were, exploded, like a flock of blackbirds, in all directions. There were screams and shouts. The professor turned his head and saw a man in a Plaid sports jacket and brown trousers, his back to the Social Science Building, his legs spread, aiming a revolver with both hand at the center of the commotion in the courtyard. He was no more than twelve feet from the Professor, and if the Professor had taken two more strides he could have been in the line of fire. |
