naders from the
street-corners or the doors of their bibulous temples. A slight
premonitory thrill runs through the city. The busy life of this restless
microcosm is arrested. The shopkeeper pauses as he elevates the goods
to bring them into a favorable light, and the glib professional
recommendation sticks on his tongue. In the drinking-saloon the glass
is checked half-way to the lips; on the streets the promenaders pause.
Another thrill, and the city begins to go down, a few of the more
persistent topers tossing off their liquor at the same moment. Beyond a
terrible sensation of nausea, the crowds who now throng the streets do
not realize the extent of the catastrophe. The waters of the bay recede
at first from the centre of depression, assuming a concave shape, the
outer edge of the circle towering many thousand feet above the city.
Another convulsion, and the water instantly resumes its level. The city
is smoothly ingulfed nine thousand feet below, and the regular swell
of the Pacific calmly rolls over it. Terrible," says Schwappelfurt, in
conclusion, "as the calamity must have been, in direct relation to the
individuals immediately concerned therein, we cannot but admire its
artistic management; the division of the catastrophe into three
periods, the completeness of the cataclysms, and the rare combination of
sincerity of intention with felicity of execution."

A NIGHT AT WINGDAM.

I had been stage-ridden and bewildered all day, and when we swept down
with the darkness into the Arcadian hamlet of "Wingdam," I resolved
to go no farther, and rolled out in a gloomy and dyspeptic state. The
effects of a mysterious pie, and some sweetened carbonic acid known
to the proprietor of the "Half-Way House" as "lemming sody," still
oppressed me. Even the facetiae of the gallant expressman who knew
everybody's Christian name along the route, who rained letters,
newspapers, and bundles from the top of the stage, whose legs frequently
appeared in frightful proximity to the wheels, who got on and off while
we were going at full speed, whose gallantry, energy, and superior
knowledge of travel crushed all us other passengers to envious silence,
and who just then was talking with several persons and manifestly doing
something else at the same time,--even this had failed to interest me.
So I stood gloomily, clutching my shawl and carpet-bag, and watched the
stage roll away, taking a parting look at the gallant expressman as he