She called and rang for the
servants, and then rushed from the library into the studio to
commence removing the more important of the jars to a place of
greater safety. She had seized two of them, one under each arm, and
was making for the library door, when there came the most awful
crash she had ever heard, and resounding bangs which seemed to echo
indefinitely in her ears....
Rossiter was working in the Prosectorium at the Zoo when the
daylight air-raid began. It seemed to be coming across the middle of
London; so, hastily doffing his overall, he left the Gardens and
walked rapidly towards Portland Place. He had hardly got past the
fountain presented by Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy in wasted
benevolence, than he heard the deafening report of the bomb which
had wrecked his studio, reduced it to a tangle of iron girders and
stanchions, strewn its floor with brick rubble and thick dust, and
left his wife a human wreck, lying unconscious with a broken spine,
surrounded by splinters of glass, broken jars, porcelain trays, and
nasty-looking fragments of sponge and vertebrate anatomy. With an
almost paralyzing premonition of disaster he ran as quickly as
possible towards Park Crescent. The Marylebone Road was strewn with
glass, and a policeman--every one else had taken shelter--was
ringing and knocking at his front door to ascertain the damage and
possible loss of life.
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