jolly joker, having repeated thus his extraordinary message to all
mankind, stopped sending.

"Well, I'll be hanged!" gasped Bill Hood. Then he wound up his magnetic
detector and sent an answering challenge into the ether.

"Can--the--funny--stuff!" he snapped. "And tune out--or--we'll
revoke--your license!"

"What a gall!" he grunted, folding up the yellow sheet of pad paper upon
which he had taken down the message to all mankind and thrusting it into
his book for a marker. "All the fools aren't dead yet!"

Then he picked up the _Lincoln_ and got down to real work. The "bug" and
his message passed from memory.

II

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?