A certain London West-End church, with which I am connected, has a
Resident Choir School attached to it. As the choir-boys' dormitory is
at the top of the building, every time that there was an air-raid
during the war, they were routed out of bed and sent down to the
coal-cellar. The boys were told to write an account of one peculiarly
severe raid as part of their school-work. One small urchin described
it as follows: "The Vicar woke us up and told us there was an
air-raid, and that we were to go down into the coal-cellar in our
pyjamas with our blankets. It was awfully jolly down in the cellar. In
our blankets we looked like robbers in a cave, or like a lot of Red
Indians. The Vicar told us stories, and we had buns and cocoa and sang
songs. It was all so awfully jolly that all the chaps hope that there
will be plenty more air-raids."

Here again the small boy's point of view differs materially from that
of the adult.

To go back to Jamaica, an acquaintance had returned early from his
office, and was having a cup of coffee on his verandah at 2.30.
Suddenly he saw the trees at the end of his garden rise up some eight
feet. A quick brain-wave suggested an earthquake to him at once, and
half-unconsciously he jumped from the verandah for all he was worth.
As he alighted on the lawn, his house crashed down behind him.

There were some further milder shocks. I was engaged in shaving early
one morning in our little wooden house, when I felt myself pushed
violently against the dressing-table, almost removing my chin with the
razor at the same time. I suspected my nephew of a practical joke, and
called out angrily to him. In an aggrieved voice he protested that he