The following Thursday afternoon a perspiring and dusty stranger from
St. Louis, who, with the Metropolitan Art Museum as his objective, was
trudging wearily through Central Park, New York City, at two o'clock,
paused to gaze with some interest at the obelisk known as Cleopatra's
Needle. The heat rose in shimmering waves from the asphalt of the
roadway, but the stranger was used to heat and he was conscientiously
engaged in the duty of seeing New York. Opposite the Museum he seated
himself upon a bench in the shade of a faded dogwood and wiped the
moisture from his eyes. The glare from the unprotected boulevards was
terrific. Under these somewhat unfavourable conditions he was occupied
in studying the monument of Egypt's past magnificence when he felt a
slight dragging sensation. It was indefinable and had no visual
concomitant. But it was as though the brakes were being gently applied
to a Pullman train. He was the only human being in the neighbourhood;
not even a policeman was visible; and the experience gave him a creepy
feeling. Then to his amazement Cleopatra's Needle slowly toppled from
its pedestal and fell with a crash across the roadway. At first he
thought it an optical illusion and wiped his eyes again, but it was
nothing of the kind. The monument, which had a moment before pointed to
the zenith, now lay shattered in three pieces upon the softening
concrete of the drive. The stranger arose and examined the fragments of
the monolith, one of which lay squarely across the road, barring all
passage. Round the pedestal were scattered small pieces of broken
granite, and from these, after looking about cautiously, he chose one
with care and placed it in his pocket.
"Gosh!" he whispered to himself as he hurried toward Fifth Avenue.
"That'll just be something to tell 'em at home! Eh, Bill?"
The dragging sensation experienced by the tourist from St. Louis was
felt by many millions of people all over the world, but, as in most
countries it occurred coincidently with pronounced earthquake shocks and
tremblings, for the most part it passed unnoticed as a specific,
individual phenomenon.
Hood, in the wireless room at Georgetown, suddenly heard in his
receivers a roar like that of Niagara and quickly removed them from his
ears. He had never known such statics. He was familiar with electrical
disturbances in the ether, but this was beyond anything in his
experience. Moreover, when he next tried to use his instruments he
discovered that something had put the whole apparatus out of commission.
About an hour later he felt a pronounced pressure in his eardrums, which
gradually passed off. The wireless refused to work for nearly eight
hours, and it was still recalcitrant when he went off duty at seven
o'clock. He had not felt the quivering of the earth round Washington,
and being an unimaginative man he accepted the other facts of the
situation philosophically. The statics would pass, and then Georgetown
would be in communication with the rest of the world again, that was
all. At seven o'clock the night shift came in, and Hood borrowed a
pipeful of tobacco from him and put on his coat.
"Say, Bill, did you feel the shock?" asked the shift, hanging up his hat
and taking a match from Hood.
"No," answered the latter, "but the statics have put the machine on the
blink. She'll come round all right in an hour or so. The air's gummy
with ions. Shock, did you say?"
"Sure. Had 'em all over the country. Say, the boys at the magnetic
observatory claim their compass shifted east and west instead of north
and south, and stayed that way for five minutes. Didn't you feel the air
pressure? I should worry! And say, I just dropped into the
Meteorological Department's office and looked at the barometer. She'd
jumped up half an inch in about two seconds, wiggled round some, and
then come back to normal. You can see the curve yourself if you ask
Fraser to show you the self-registering barograph. Some doin's, I tell
you!"
He nodded his head with an air of importance.
"Take your word for it," answered Hood without emotion, save for a
slight annoyance at the other's arrogation of superior information.
"'Tain't the first time there's been an earthquake since creation." And
he strolled out, swinging to the doors behind him.
The night shift settled himself before the instruments with a look of
dreary resignation.
"Say," he muttered aloud, "you couldn't jar that feller with a
thirteen-inch bomb! He wouldn't even rub himself!"
Hood, meantime, bought an evening paper and walked slowly to the
district where he lived. It was a fine night and there was no particular
excitement in the streets. His wife opened the door.
"Well," she greeted him, "I'm glad you've come home at last. I was plumb
scared something had happened to you. Such a shaking and rumbling and
rattling I never did hear! Did you feel it?"
"I didn't feel nothin'!" answered Bill Hood. "Some one said there was a
shock, that was all I heard about it. The machine's out of kilter."
"They won't blame you, will they?" she asked anxiously.
"You bet they won't!" he replied. "Look here, I'm hungry. Are the
waffles ready?"
"Have 'em in a jiffy!" she smiled. "You go in and read your paper."
He did as he was directed, and seated himself in a rocker under the
gaslight. After perusing the baseball news he turned back to the front
page. The paper was a fairly late edition, containing up-to-the-minute
telegraphic notes. In the centre column, alongside the announcement of
the annihilation of three entire regiments of Silesians by the explosion
of nitroglycerine concealed in dummy gun carriages, was the following: