The Evacuation of England: The Twist in the Gulf StreamGratacap, L. P. (Louis Pope)
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The Evacuation of England: The Twist in the Gulf Stream
Gratacap, L. P. (Louis Pope)
Climatic changes -- Fiction; Great Britain -- Fiction
This diversion, attended with laughter, shouts and cries of pain,
had nearly subsided, when a new and more alarming disorder arose in
the neighborhood of the Garrett party, who had betaken themselves
to the porch of one of the souvenir shops. A wandering and aimless
dog, suffering from kicks and repulses, had turned on some of its
persecutors, and, yelping and snapping with inflamed and frightened
eyes, had suddenly been diagnosed, by an inconsiderate observer,
as “_mad_.” This information, as usually, proclaimed in a loud,
denunciatory tone, raised in a second an indescribable hubbub. Room to
run from the bewildered canine was not to be found, and the only thing
to do for those in the vicinity, was to squeeze more violently against
their companions, leaving a slender and irregular space in which the
dog gyrated, biting at friend and foe alike. The undulous area of
movement thus formed swayed to and fro, with the distracted struggles
of the dog, and soon swung violently towards the Garretts, who became
rudely jolted and pressed by frantic men and women, in whose legs
apprehension of the dog’s teeth seemed to have produced extraordinary
motions, for they shuffled and kicked and scrambled in a way very
undignified and ridiculous. The upshot of it was to drive a frenzied
pack of people towards the souvenir shop, in the hope of entering the
shop, and evading the wretched canine somewhere beneath their skirts
and trousers--an absurd design, as the shop itself was solid with
condensed humanity.
Brig Barry saw the danger, and quickly hustling Sally and Mrs. Garrett
between the men of his party, told all to stand firmly, after knitting
their arms within each other, forming an elastic and impenetrable wall.
As it was, the colliding tides around them sent them on an unexpected
orbit of translation, and a few minutes later they found themselves
pushed towards the trolley tracks, not far from the dishevelled and
malign looking local hotel, but in a less exposed and stormy quarter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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