Hi John,
JW> For interest I tried. The results were.
JW> Squeak 5600 - 5800 milliseconds JW> Pharo 5400 - 5500 milliseconds JW> Cuis 200 - 500 milliseconds
JW> So there was a factor of 10 in it which I why I noticed I guess.
this is significant so I'm very curious what accounts for the difference. Would you mind to send me the Squeak version or post it here?