The building went up, and the promoter, the two editors and the reporters on the upper floor accompanied the building.
Two of the newspaper men were great rivals. One of them was the editor of the Clarion and the other the editor of the Echo. It so happened that the Clarion had better facilities for getting telegraphic news than the Echo, and accordingly the Clarion was usually able to post its news in advance of the Echo, and the editor of the Clarion used often to chaff his rival with the remark, “It’s no use to put up your poster now, for my poster of the same news is just coming down.” He called the Echo the echo of the Clarion.
When the explosion occurred, the editor of the Clarion, being more directly over the explosive than was the editor of the Echo, went up farther and faster, and on his return met the editor of the Echo still going up, and called out to him, “Behind as usual! All of the other fellows are coming down.”
THE PASSING OF “JEOPARDY”
We once had a servant girl whom we nicknamed “Jeopardy,” because she could not be prevented from pouring kerosene directly from the can upon a lighted fire.
One day, Jeopardy left us very suddenly, and she never came back. We were sorry she left, as Jeopardy was a good girl. It developed that she had chanced to find a fifty-pound case of dynamite sticks in the wood-shed, which she had been using to start the fire in the kitchen stove.
Sometimes, dynamite will work all right for such a purpose, but it is notional stuff and can not be depended upon merely to burn. It was during one of these intervals of independability that Jeopardy went.