“WHENCE ALL BUT HIM HAD FLED”
I have a literary friend by the name of Marvin Dana, who, although he was for years editor of the Smart Set, once failed in a bit of à priori perspicuity. Some Italians were blasting out a bit of rock at Landing for the foundation of a new bridge, to carry the roadway over the railroad in that village. They had just finished charging a big, deep hole with dynamite, and had lighted the fuze, when Marvin started to cross the temporary bridge with his usual measured stride of ever-conscious dignity. The Italians, who had withdrawn to a safe distance, seeing him coming, and they being unable to speak English, gesticulated wildly, and pointed excitedly in the direction of the blast under the bridge.
The littérateur concluded that there must be something extraordinary going on down below there—something quite worth looking at, and, walking directly above the blast, leaned over the bridge and looked down. Just at that instant the mine exploded.
He was, happily, unhurt by any of the flying stones and débris, but the knock-down argument of the shock from the blast convinced him that such carelessness on the part of those Italians, with never a guard to wave a red flag warning pedestrians, was, indeed, truly shocking.