or other peoples'. He was trembling with fright, his crooked teeth
were hammering together like those of an angry woodchuck. But the
effects of the shock continued to pass away, and his wits to come
back to him, and at last Peter realized that he never had taken
seriously the ideas of the First Apostolic Church of American City.
He listened to the moans of the wounded, and to the shouts and
uproar of the crowd, and began seriously figuring out what could
have happened. There had once been an earthquake in American City;
could this be another one? Or had a volcano opened up in the midst
of Main Street? Or could it have been a gas-main? And was this the
end, or would it explode some more? Would the volcano go on
erupting, and blow Peter and his frail packing-box thru the walls of
Guggenheim's Department-store?

So Peter waited, and listened to the horrible sounds of people in
agony, and pleading with others to put them out of it. Peter heard
voices of men giving orders, and realized that these must be
policemen, and that no doubt there would be ambulances coming. Maybe
there was something the matter with him, and he ought to crawl out
and get himself taken care of. All of a sudden Peter remembered his
stomach; and his wits, which had been sharpened by twenty years'
struggle against a hostile world, realized in a flash the
opportunity which fate had brought to him. He must pretend to be
wounded, badly wounded; he must be unconscious, suffering from shock
and shattered nerves; then they would take him to the hospital and
put him in a soft bed and give him things to eat--maybe he might
stay there for weeks, and they might give him money when he came
out.

Or perhaps he might get a job in the hospital, something that was