The Telephone Boy, who usually got a bit of something hot sent down to
him from one of the tables, owing to the fact that he never ate any
meal save breakfast at home, was quite forgotten on this day, and dined
off two russet apples, and drew up his belt to stop the ache--for the
Telephone Boy was growing very fast indeed, in spite of his poverty,
and couldn't seem to stop growing somehow, although he said to himself
every day that it was perfectly brutal of him to keep on that way when
his mother had so many mouths to feed.
Well, well, the tightness of the air got worse. Every one was cross at
dinner and complained of feeling tired afterward, and of wanting to go
to bed. For all of that it was not to get to sleep, and the children
tossed and tumbled for a long time before they put their little hands
in the big, soft shadowy clasp of the Sandman, and trooped away after
him to the happy town of sleep.
It seemed to the flat children that they had been asleep but a few
moments when there came a terrible burst of wind that shook even that
great house to its foundations. Actually, as they sat up in bed and
called to their parents or their nurses, their voices seemed smothered
with roar. Could it be that the wind was a great wild beast with a
hundred tongues which licked at the roof of the building? And how many
voices must it have to bellow as it did?
Sounds of falling glass, of breaking shutters, of crashing chimneys
greeted their ears--not that they knew what all these sounds meant.
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