About noon
But an hour went by and Cal did not appear . Perhaps he was waiting in ambush , to shoot him from a door or a window . Sam kept a sharp eye on doors and windows for a while . About noon the city tired of playing with its mouse and suddenly squeezed him with its straight lines . Sam Folwell stood where two great , rectangular arteries of the city cross . He looked four ways , and saw the world hurled from its orbit and reduced by spirit level and tape to an edged and cornered plane . All life moved on tracks , in grooves , according to system , within boundaries , by rote .