whole back of his coat was burned off, and
his suspenders just held by a thread. He said the comet struck the earth
at Racine, at 9:30 the night before, and knocked the town into the lake,
and he and another fellow were all that escaped.

The narrowest escape was that of young Mr. Oberman. He is a small man,
all except his heart and feet, and when the air began to fill with
patriotic missiles, he started to run. On passing the _News_ office he
had to jump over the old coal stove that stood there, and while he
was in the air, six feet from the sidewalk, a sky rocket stick passed
through his coat tail and pinned him to the building, where he hung
suspended, while other rocket sticks were striking all around him, Roman
candle colored balls were falling on his unprotected head, etc., and one
of these nigger chasers, that run all over the ground, climbed up the
side of the building and tried to get in his pants pocket.

Mr. Oberman begged Mr. Wright, the postmaster, to cut him down, but Mr.
Wright, who was using both hands and his voice trying to disengage a
package of pin-wheels from the back portion of his coat, which were on
fire and throwing out colored sparks, said he hadn't got time, as he was
going down to the river to take a sitz bath for his health.

The man that keeps the hotel next door to the _News_ office came out
with a pail of water, yelled "fire," and threw the water on Mr. Curt
Treat's head. Mr. Treat was very much vexed, and told the hotel man if
he couldn't tell the difference between an auburn haired young man and
a pin-wheel, he'd better go and hire somebody that could. Friends of
Mr. Treat say that he would be justified in going into the hotel and
ordering a bottle of pop, and then refusing to pay for it, as the water
took all the starch out of his shirt.

Those who saw the explosion say it was one of the most magnificent, yet
awful and terrible sights ever witnessed, and the only wonder is that
somebody was not hurt. What added to the terror of the scene was when
they went to the artesian well to get water to put out the fire and
found that the well had ceased flowing. On investigation they found that
Mr. Sage, the Assemblyman, had crawled into the pipe.

By the way, Mr. Oberman finally got down from his terrible position by
the aid of the editor of the _Journal_, to whom Mr. Oberman promised
coal enough to run his engine for a year. Very few men displayed any
coolness except Mr. Treat and Mr. Sage