But Lorry could not drink much. It seemed to Aunt Ellen she hardly touched the cup to her lips when she was up and moving toward the house again—this time for her hat.
"Hat!" muttered the old lady, picking at a bunch of grapes. "The girl's gone mad. Wanting a hat in the middle of an earthquake."
Then her attention was attracted by a man stopping at the gate and bidding her good-morning. He was the fishman from Polk Street, extremely excited, his greeting followed by a voluble description of how he had escaped from a collapsing building in his undershirt. Aunt Ellen swapped experiences with him, and pointed to the chimney, which if it had fallen inward would have killed her. The fishman was not particularly interested in that and went on to tell how he had been down to Union Square and seen thousands of people there—and had she heard that fires had started in the Mission—a good many fires? Lorry, emerging from the house, drew near and said, as she had said to Fong:
"But there's no danger of fires getting any headway. You can't beat our firemen in the country."
The fishman, moving to go, looked dubious.
"Yes, we got a grand department, no one denies that. But the Mission's mostly wood and there's quite some wind. It looks pretty serious to me."
He passed on and Lorry went to the gate.
"Where are you going now?"' Aunt Ellen cried.
"Out," said Lorry, clicking up the hasp. "I want to see what's going on. I'll be back in an hour or two. If Chrystie comes, stay here with her-right here on this spot."
Afterward Lorry said she thought she walked twenty miles that day. Her first point of call was Crowley's livery stable where she asked for a carriage. There were only two men in the place; one, owl-eyed and speechless, in what appeared to be a state of drunken stupefaction, waved her to the other, who, putting a horse into the shafts of a cart, shook his head. He couldn't give her a carriage for love or money. Every vehicle in the place was already gone—the rich customers had grabbed them all, some come right in and taken them, others bought them outright. He swung his hand to the empty depths of the building; not an animal left but the one he had and he was taking it to go after his wife and children; they were down in the Mission and the Mission was on fire. He had the animal harnessed and was climbing to the seat as Lorry left the stable.