There wasn't a chance even for him--Bentham T. Tassifer--to get further from Washington than he could be taken in a taxi. To New York, perhaps! But New York had gone mad. Its harbor was blocked with liners, cruisers, tugs, and ferry-boats away out beyond Sandy Hook, so that there was no means of departure for those already loaded with their terrified human freight. Tassifer had expostulated, insisted, ordered, roared that it was imperative that he, if anybody, should at once secure passage for Europe. But berths on the liners sailing from Newfoundland were selling for twenty-five thousand dollars each. And he hadn't the money. He had thought of asking for a war-ship to take him away--like a recalled foreign ambassador--but he had been informed that they were all otherwise engaged. His feelings were deeply hurt. Also, he was--although he did not admit it--agonized with fear. He was only fifty-three. And he didn't want to die young. He found his wife already at the supper-table and rather snippy; so he resolved to put on a brave front and laugh the matter off. "Well," she inquired severely, as he removed his napkin from its ring decorated with an enameled design of the Clan McIntosh plaid, "did you get anything?" Delicately detaching a fish-ball from its comrades, he made as if he didn't fully understand. "Get--anything?" he repeated vaguely. "Oh, you mean passage? No--that is, I didn't take your suggestion seriously. Did you really mean that you wanted to run away?" Mrs. Tassifer fixed him with a pair of fiery, if watery, gray eyes, and her lips drew down into a thin line. "Bentham," she almost hissed, "don't trifle with _me_! You _know_ you are just as anxious to get away from this God-forsaken country as I am--as everybody is! Do you suppose I am going to wait here calmly for a planet to fall on my head?" Mr. Tassifer was frightened, but he preserved his outward placidity and sampled a piece of fish-ball. "I don't believe a word of it," he answered, avoiding her glance. "Who ever heard of such a thing? Asteroid-rot!" "Nobody else thinks it's _rot_, as you call it!" she snapped. "Rhoda certainly knows about such things, and she says it's absolutely sure." "Rhoda!" snorted Bentham. His wife's niece was a constant thorn in the side of his pride. He resented her cleverness, conscious that, if women got the vote, he could never manage to keep his job--some college girl would get it probably. "Well, she's a real professor, isn't she?" demanded Mrs. Tassifer, who admired her brother's daughter in spite of her intellectual superiority. "S'pose so," mumbled Bentham, removing a small bone from his mouth. "Rhoda says," continued his wife, "that Professor Hooker is going to start out in his flying machine and drive that asteroid off, so it won't hit the earth at all!" "Ha--ha--ha!" laughed Mr. Tassifer, but without mirth. "Ha--ha--ha!" she mocked him. "You are very irritating at times, Bentham!"