Two of the newspaper men were great rivals. One of them was the editor of the _Clarion_ and the other the editor of the _Echo_. It so happened that the _Clarion_ had better facilities for getting telegraphic news than the _Echo_, and accordingly the _Clarion_ was usually able to post its news in advance of the _Echo_, and the editor of the _Clarion_ used often to chaff his rival with the remark, "It's no use to put up your poster now, for my poster of the same news is just coming down." He called the _Echo_ the echo of the _Clarion_. When the explosion occurred, the editor of the _Clarion_, being more directly over the explosive than was the editor of the _Echo_, went up farther and faster, and on his return met the editor of the _Echo_ still going up, and called out to him, "Behind as usual! All of the other fellows are coming down." THE PASSING OF "JEOPARDY" We once had a servant girl whom we nicknamed "Jeopardy," because she could not be prevented from pouring kerosene directly from the can upon a lighted fire. One day, Jeopardy left us very suddenly, and she never came back. We were sorry she left, as Jeopardy was a good girl. It developed that she had chanced to find a fifty-pound case of dynamite sticks in the wood-shed, which she had been using to start the fire in the kitchen stove. Sometimes, dynamite will work all right for such a purpose, but it is notional stuff and can not be depended upon merely to burn. It was during one of these intervals of independability that Jeopardy went. THE INVOLUNTARY ATTACK Soon after the invention of the Maxim automatic machine gun, I took the American agency for the introduction of the weapon to the United States Government. Among the tests that were conducted with the gun at Sandy Hook was one known as the sand test, sand being sifted into the mechanism of the gun, which was then loaded and fired. The gun went through the test perfectly. The commanding officer, however, had not himself been present at the regular tests and arrived upon the scene only after they had been concluded. This particular officer was a dyspeptic, and was at times very unpleasant and domineering. On this occasion, he was particularly so. When told by the officers immediately in charge of the tests that they had been concluded, he peremptorily commanded that the gun should be loaded and fired again. One of the under-officers demurred, stating that a sand test was a very hard one on the gun, and that it would be unfair to subject it to unnecessary hardship of that character. That officer was immediately sat upon very hard. The gun was loaded and made ready, pointing out to sea, as usual. At this moment, a schooner was seen rapidly coming into range. The commanding officer, however, said that he wanted to see only a few rounds fired, and that there would be plenty of time to fire them before the schooner came into the zone of danger; and he immediately gave the command: "Fire."