adventure, or, like Estelle, who had no immediate fear because
all her family was provided for without her help and lived far
from New York, so they would not learn of the catastrophe for
some time. Many, however, felt instant and pressing fear for the
families whose expenses ran always so close to their incomes that
the disappearance of the breadwinner for a week would mean actual
want or debt. There are very many such families in New York.

The people, therefore, that gathered hopelessly at the call of Van
Deventer's watchmen were dazed and spiritless. Their excitement
after Arthur's first attempt to explain the situation to them had
evaporated. They were no longer keyed up to a high pitch by the
startling thing that had happened to them.

Nevertheless, although only half comprehending what had actually
occurred, they began to realize what that occurrence meant.
No matter where they might go over the whole face of the globe,
they would always be aliens and strangers. If they had been carried
away to some unknown shore, some wilderness far from their own
land, they might have thought of building ships to return to their
homes. They had seen New York vanish before their eyes, however.
They had seen their civilization disappear while they watched.

They were in a barbarous world. There was not, for example,
a single sulfur match on the whole earth except those in the
runaway skyscraper.