"Either that or else a volcanic eruption, such as they had on Martinique years ago."
"That was a terrible thing. I was told it wiped out 30,000 lives at the city of St. Pierre."
"Yes, and it was followed by the sinking of four small islands in that vicinity and the appearance of the island now known as Gromley, after Professor Gromley, the geologist, who discovered it."
"Those must have been trying times down here."
"They were—so my father told me. And a few years later, when they had that little earthquake in New York city, and the whole mass slipped two inches toward the Battery and the bay, folks got scared out of their wits. My father told me that downtown people left New York with a rush, and some of them didn't go back until several months later."
"I don't blame them. Imagine the whole city, with its enormously high buildings, coming down with a crash and sliding into the bay. It's enough to make a fellow shiver from head to foot."
"Something is bound to happen there some day—if they keep on putting up those skyscrapers. Just before we left I heard of a party who was going to erect a building one hundred stories high and three blocks long, the streets between the blocks to be bridged over."
"Gosh! That fellow must have money!"
"It was a stock company building, and the shares were to be held by the tenants. But I wouldn't want to live or do business on the hundredth floor, I can tell you that."
At this moment word came in from the lookout that he desired to see Captain Oscar at once.