heart or two cracks later on; and the wise people in the settlement are
saying that they predicted it from the first. None the less as an
earthquake it deserves recording.

It was a very rainy afternoon; all the streets were full of gruelly mud,
and all the business men were at work in their offices when it began. A
knot of Chinamen were studying a closed door from whose further side
came a most unpleasant sound of bolting and locking up. The notice on
the door was interesting. With deep regret did the manager of the New
Oriental Banking Corporation, Limited (most decidedly limited), announce
that on telegraphic orders from home he had suspended payment. Said one
Chinaman to another in pidgin-Japanese: 'It is shut,' and went away. The
noise of barring up continued, the rain fell, and the notice stared down
the wet street. That was all. There must have been two or three men
passing by to whom the announcement meant the loss of every penny of
their savings--comforting knowledge to digest after tiffin. In London,
of course, the failure would not mean so much; there are many banks in
the City, and people would have had warning. Here banks are few, people
are dependent on them, and this news came out of the sea unheralded, an
evil born with all its teeth.

After the crash of a bursting shell every one who can picks himself up,
brushes the dirt off his uniform, and tries to make a joke of it. Then
some one whips a handkerchief round his hand--a splinter has torn
it--and another finds warm streaks running down his forehead. Then a
man, overlooked till now and past help, groans to the death. Everybody
perceives with a start that this is no time for laughter, and the dead
and wounded are attended to.

Even so at the Overseas Club when the men got out of office. The brokers