"They're worth more to me," he exulted; "than all the gold between
here and what's left of San Francisco!"

He found nothing more of value in the litter. Everything else was
rusted beyond use. So, having convinced himself that nothing more
remained, he gathered up his finds and started back whence he had
come.

After some quarter-hour of hard labor, he managed to transport
everything up into the arcade.

"Now for a glimpse of the outer world!" quoth he.

Gripping the sledge well in hand, he made his way through the confused
nexus of ruin. Disguised as everything now was, fallen and disjointed,
murdering, blighted by age incalculable, still the man recognized many
familiar features.

Here, he recalled, the telephone-booths had been; there the
information desk. Yonder, again, he remembered the little curved
counter where once upon a time a man in uniform had sold tickets to
such as had wanted to visit the tower.

Counter now was dust; ticket-man only a crumble of fine, grayish
powder. Stern shivered slightly, and pressed on.

As he approached the outer air, he noticed that many a grassy tuft and
creeping vine had rooted in the pavement of the arcade, up-prying the
marble slabs and cracking the once magnificent floor.