"

The dragging sensation experienced by the tourist from St. Louis was
felt by many millions of people all over the world, but, as in most
countries it occurred coincidently with pronounced earthquake shocks and
tremblings, for the most part it passed unnoticed as a specific,
individual phenomenon.

Hood, in the wireless room at Georgetown, suddenly heard in his
receivers a roar like that of Niagara and quickly removed them from his
ears. He had never known such statics. He was familiar with electrical
disturbances in the ether, but this was beyond anything in his
experience. Moreover, when he next tried to use his instruments he
discovered that something had put the whole apparatus out of commission.
About an hour later he felt a pronounced pressure in his eardrums, which
gradually passed off. The wireless refused to work for nearly eight
hours, and it was still recalcitrant when he went off duty at seven
o'clock. He had not felt the quivering of the earth round Washington,
and being an unimaginative man he accepted the other facts of the
situation philosophically. The statics would pass, and then Georgetown
would be in communication with the rest of the world again, that was
all. At seven o'clock the night shift came in, and Hood borrowed a
pipeful of tobacco from him and put on his coat.

"Say, Bill, did you feel the shock?" asked the shift, hanging up his hat
and taking a match from Hood.

"No," answered the latter, "but the statics have put the machine on the
blink. She'll come round all right in an hour or so. The air's gummy
with ions. Shock, did you say?"

"Sure. Had 'em all over the country. Say, the boys at the magnetic
observatory claim their compass shifted east and west instead of north
and south, and stayed that way for five minutes. Didn't you feel the air
pressure? I should worry! And say, I just dropped into the
Meteorological Department's office and looked at the barometer. She'd
jumped up half an inch in about two seconds, wiggled round some, and
then come back to normal. You can see the curve yourself if you ask
Fraser to show you the self-registering barograph. Some doin's, I tell
you!"

He nodded his head with an air of importance.

"Take your word for it," answered Hood without emotion, save for a
slight annoyance at the other's arrogation of superior information.
"'Tain't the first time there's been an earthquake since creation." And
he strolled out, swinging to the doors behind him.