The Sign at Six | Page 5

of the automobile had consigned them.
McCarthy added his mite; he was beginning to feel himself the victim of a series of nagging impertinences, which he resented after his kind.
"If," said he, "your company would put out something on the street besides a bunch of retired grist-mills with clock dials hitched on to them, you might be able to give the public some service. I've got lots of time. Don't hurry through your afternoon exercise on my account. Just buy a lawn-mower and a chatelaine watch apiece--you'd do just as well."
By now every man had his battery box open, McCarthy left them, puzzling over the singular failure of the electrical apparatus, which is the nervous system of the modern automobile.
He turned into Fifth Avenue. An astonishing sight met his eyes.
The old days had returned. The center of the long roadway, down which ordinarily a long file of the purring monsters of gasoline creep and dash, shouldering aside the few hansoms and victorias remaining from a bygone age, now showed but a swinging slashing trot of horses.
Hansoms, hacks, broughams; up-raised whips, whirling in signal; the spat spat of horses' hoofs; all the obsolescent vehicles that ordinarily doze in hope along the stands of the side streets; it was a gay sight of the past raised again for the moment to reality by the same mysterious blight that had shadowed the Atlas Building the night before.
Along the curbs, where they had been handpushed under direction from the traffic squad, stood an unbroken line of automobiles. And the hood of each was raised for the eager tinkering of its chauffeur. Past them streamed the horses, and the faces of their drivers were illumined by broad grins.
McCarthy looked about him for a hansom. There was none unengaged. In fact, the boss soon determined that many others, like himself, were waiting for a chance at the first vacant one. Reluctantly he made up his mind to walk. He glanced up at the tower of the Metropolitan Building; then stared in astonishment. The hands of the great dial were still perpendicular--the hour indicated was still six o'clock!
CHAPTER IV
DARKNESS AND PANIC
Probably the only men in the whole of New York who accepted promptly and unquestioningly the fact that the entire electrical apparatus of the city was paralyzed were those in the newspaper offices. These capable citizens, accustomed to quick adaptations to new environments and to wide reaches of the imagination, made two or three experiments, and accepted the inevitable.
Within ten minutes the Despatch had messenger boys on tap instead of bells, bicycles instead of telephones, and a variety of lamps and candles in place of electricity. Everybody else in town was speculating why in blazes this visitation had struck them. The Despatch was out after news.
Marsden, city editor, detailed three men to dig up expert opinion on why it had all happened.
"And if the scientific men haven't any other notions, ask 'em if it's anything to do with the earth passing through the tail of the comet," he told them.
The rest of the staff he turned out for stories of the effects. His imagination was struck by the contemplation of a modern civilized city deprived of its nerve system.
"Hunt up the little stuff," said he; "the big stuff will hunt you up--if you scatter."
After covering the usual police-station, theater and hotel assignments, he sent Hallowell to the bridge; Longman to the Grand Central; Kennedy, Warren and Thomas to the tubes, subways and ferries. The others he told to go out on the streets.
They saw a city of four million people stopped short on its way home to dinner! They saw a city, miles in extent, set back without preparation to a communication by messenger only! They saw a city, unprepared, blinking its way by the inadequate illuminations of a half-century gone by!
Hallowell found a packed mass of humanity at the bridge. Where ordinarily is a crush, even with incessant outgoing trains sucking away at the surplus, now was a panic--a panic the more terrible in that it was solid, sullen, inert, motionless. Women fainted, and stood unconscious, erect. Men sank slowly from sight, agonized, their faces contorted, but unheard in the dull roar of the crowd, and were seen no more. Around the edges people fought frantically to get out; and others, with the blind, unreasoning, home instinct, fought as hard to get in.
The police were unavailing. They could not penetrate to break the center. Across the bridge streamed a procession of bruised and battered humanity, escaped from or cast forth by the maelstrom. The daylight was fading, and within the sheds men could not see one another's faces.
Longman at the Grand Central observed a large and curious crowd that filled the building and packed the streets round about. They waited for their trains, and the twilight gathered.