"'Oh!' he groaned. 'Where can I find a restaurant?'
"'Restaurant!' shrieked the other. 'Where do you think we are? Restaurant! You come with me and I'll try to steal you a ham sandwich, and you'll be mighty lucky to get that.'
"'Oh! but I am so hungry. Can you direct me to the nearest hack stand?'
"The brother reporter turned and fled in dismay, and the society man hasn't been seen around here since. But it illustrates the time the boys have been having getting anything to eat. So we had better accept the general's invitation. What have we here? Oh! this is fine. You don't mind tin plates and spoons and coffee cups, of course, especially as we have ham and potatoes, bread and coffee for dinner. That's a right good meal; but I tell you I have eaten enough ham to last me for a year, and when I get out of Johnstown and get back to Philadelphia I am going to make a break for the Bellevue and eat. And there won't be any ham in that dinner, you can bet.
A Renowned Building.
"Now, have you had enough? Then we will continue our walk along the tracks to the bridge. First we pass the Pennsylvania Railroad passenger station. What a busy place it is! The tracks are filled with freight cars packed with supplies, and the platform is filled with men and women ready to take them. In this station a temporary morgue was established. It has been moved now to the school-house, No. 4, you know, on the map. Now, as we round the curve you see it. That is the famous building that saved so many lives—the only one left in the great barren waste of sand. You know the water formed an eddy about it, and thus, as house after house floated and circled about it men and women would clutch the roof and climb upon it. The water reached half way to the ceiling on the second floor on a dead level.
"Now you can see where the two rivers come together. What a jam that was. It extended from the fork down to the bridge—No. 10. When the flames began to demolish it the pile towered far above the bridge. Now it is level with the water, but so thickly is it packed that the river runs beneath it. Let us stand here on the railroad embankment at the approach to the bridge, and watch the workmen. You notice how high the approaches are on either side, and you can readily understand how these high banks caught the drift. The stone arches of the bridge are low, you perceive. When the flood was at its height houses were actually swept over the bridge. From the débris left in the river and on the sides you can imagine what an immense dam it was that was formed, and just how it happened that the rivers turned back on themselves. I met a woman up Stony Creek early this morning. She was laughing over the adventure she and her children had. They floated down the creek to the bridge and then floated back again, and were finally rescued in boats. I asked her how she could joke about it.
"'Oh!' she said, 'I am never bothered about anything. I was as cool then as I am now, and rather enjoyed it.'
"But she wasn't very cool. She was bordering on the hysterical. She and her children are now living with friends, for their house was completely wrecked.
A Telegraph Office.