uller and
more detailed version of the account which appeared in the Monday edition
of the Daily Gazette--an account which has been universally admitted to
be the greatest journalistic scoop of all time, which sold no fewer than
three-and-a-half million copies of the paper. Framed upon the wall of my
sanctum I retain those magnificent headlines:--

TWENTY-EIGHT HOURS' WORLD COMA
UNPRECEDENTED EXPERIENCE
CHALLENGER JUSTIFIED
OUR CORRESPONDENT ESCAPES
ENTHRALLING NARRATIVE
THE OXYGEN ROOM
WEIRD MOTOR DRIVE
DEAD LONDON
REPLACING THE MISSING PAGE
GREAT FIRES AND LOSS OF LIFE
WILL IT RECUR?

Underneath this glorious scroll came nine and a half columns of
narrative, in which appeared the first, last, and only account of the
history of the planet, so far as one observer could draw it, during one
long day of its existence. Challenger and Summerlee have treated the
matter in a joint scientific paper, but to me alone was left the popular
account. Surely I can sing "Nunc dimittis." What is left but
anti-climax in the life of a journalist after that!

But let me not end on sensational headlines and a merely personal
triumph. Rather let me quote the sonorous passages in which the greatest
of daily papers ended its admirable leader upon the subject--a leader
which might well be filed for reference by every thoughtful man.

"It has been a well-worn truism," said the Times, "that our human race
are a feeble folk before the infinite latent forces which surround us.
From the prophets of old and from the philosophers of our own time the
same message and warning have reached us. But, like all oft-repeated
truths, it has in time lost something of its actuality and cogency. A
lesson, an actual experience, was needed to bring it home. It is from
that salutory but terrible ordeal that we have just emerged, with minds
which are still stunned by the suddenness of the blow and with spirits
which are chastened by the realization of our own limitations and
impotence. The world has paid a fearful price for its schooling. Hardly
yet have we learned the full tale of disaster, but the destruction by
fire of New York, of Orleans, and of Brighton constitutes in itself one
of the greatest tragedies in the histo