MR. WHITTLE AND THE MORNING STAR

Mr. Whittle was a dry little history professor, who suddenly shocked his listeners into awareness that he was predicting the immediate end of the world. But the very idea of life coming to dead stop precipitated all sorts of aberrations- and irritations. Mr. Whittle found a certain vapid young creature in his classes tantalizingly attractive; Mrs. Whittle allowed her neighbor to kiss her goodnight- and a happy marriage almost crashed on unsuspected shoals. This is a bit off Robert Nathan's usual near-fantasy track, but the story, even so, seems told on a level of half dream, with a thinly veiled undertone of satiric comment on the accepted mores. Not Nathan at his best.