ody
stopped to look as they walked by.

The main streets, where the business part of the city had been, were
black with an immense throng of people who were walking up and down
among the ruins.

Looking toward the ferries, I could count nine big skyscrapers, all
crowned with fire, outlined in a lurid row against the sky line. The
flames were creeping slowly, but with deadly persistence, toward Nob
Hill, with several lesser fires blazing in between.

It was high time Nob Hill was moving.

One old man had chartered an express wagon, and was on top of the
wagon frantically interfering with the work of removing the goods from
a big, aristocratic-looking house.

"The books!" he shrieked, "Why in heaven's sake don't you bring the
books?"

A swagger young woman came to the door with a handsome mantel clock
and walked calmly down the stairs. "Please put this in some especially
safe place, please," she said, as composedly as though this were
nothing more than any ordinary moving day.

Down the street I saw a woman with the bearing of a patrician shoving
at the rear of a push cart, loaded with all of the few things she
could save; a servant was drawing it.

Behind came a young girl, who half turned for a last look at the
house, and burst out crying. Her mother left the load for a moment and
comforted her. "Never mind, dear," she said. "Don't cry! See, mamma
isn't crying."

"Mamma" knew that in a few minutes her home and all the property she
had in the world would die in the fire just as her husband's business
had already done; but mamma wasn't crying.

On the corner of Van Ness avenue and Broadway, I saw a girl well
dressed, who had evidently been driven out from there. All she had
saved was a bed tick filled with something. As it was very hot, and
she was very tired, she had spread it on the pavement, and was
watching the throng from under her parasol.

I saw another girl in a trig outing suit and little patent-leather
shoes, toss a bundle, done up in a sheet, over her shoulder and walk
away in the procession with the most fascinating nonchalance.

One woman I saw going away in an elegantly-fitted private carriage. It
was drawn by two horses with tails about two inches long and soaring;
so she must have been near the top of the Upper Crust.

She, too, joined in the flight. Just as she got to the bottom of the
hill she had the driver stop. I saw her turn and take a last wistful
look from her carriage window at h