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 me, "I was cutting French eggs. Selling at a loss to do it. He'd marked down with a great staring ticket to ninepence a dozen--I saw it as I went past. Here's my answer!" He indicated a ticket. "'Eightpence a dozen--same as sold elsewhere for ninepence.' A whole penny down, bang off! Just a touch above cost--if that--and even then--" He leaned over the counter to say impressively. "Not the same eggs!"

"Now, what people in their senses would do things like that?" said Mr. Wiggins.

I sent my telegram; the proprietor despatched it for me, and while he did so I fell exchanging experiences with Mr. Wiggins. He knew no more than I did then the nature of the Change that had come over things. He had been alarmed by the green flashes, he said, so much so that after watching for a time from behind his bedroom window blind, he had got up and hastily dressed and made his family get up also, so that they might be ready for the end. He made them put on their Sunday clothes. They all went out into the garden together, their minds divided between admiration at the gloriousness of the spectacle and a great and growing awe. They were Dissenters, and very religious people out of business hours, and it seemed to them in those last magnificent moments that, after all, science must be wrong