Didactic fiction; Political fiction; Social problems -- Fiction
He buried his face in his hands and shuddered.
"Shook you up considerable, did it? Your nerves are off. Here, wait a
minute! I'll fix you something."
The doctor went back into the inner room and returned presently with a
small glass.
"Drink this. It will give you some nerve."
The architect took the stimulant and then lay down once more with his
face to the wall. Before long he pulled himself together and drank a
cup of coffee, which the doctor had prepared. Then he took himself
off, saying that he must get to his office at once. He went away in a
daze, barely thanking the doctor for his kindness. When he had left,
Coburn began to whistle again, thinking, "There's something more'n
drink or that fire the matter with _him_!"
Hart bought a newspaper at the first stand. It was swelled with pages
of coarse cuts and "stories" of the "Glenmore Hotel Tragedy." On the
elevated train, which he took to reach the city, all the passengers
were buried in the voluminous sheets of their newspapers, avidly
sucking in the details of the disaster. For a time he stared at the
great cut on the first page of his paper, which purported to represent
the scene at the fire when the south wall fell. But in its place he
saw the sheer stretch of pitiless wall, the miserable figures on the
iron ladder being swept into the flames. Then he read the headlines of
the account of the fire. Seventeen persons known to have been in the
hotel were missing; the bodies of ten had been found. Had it not been
for the heroism of a colored elevator boy, Morris by name, who ran his
car up and down seven times through the burning shaft, the death list
would have been far longer. On the second trip, so the account ran,
the elevator had been caught by a broken gate on the third floor.
Morris had coolly run his car back to the top, then opened the lever to
full speed, and crashed his way triumphantly through the obstacle. It
was one of those acts of unexpected intelligence, daring, and devotion
to duty which bring tears to the eyes of thousands all over the land.
The brave fellow had been caught in the collapse of the upper floors,
and his body had not yet been found. It was buried under tons of brick
and iron in the wrecked building.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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