However--on second thought,--if the reader sees any coincidence in this, he must do it at his own risk.
The first shock brought down two or three huge organ-pipes in one of the churches.

The minister, with uplifted hands, was just closing the services.

He glanced up, hesitated, and said: "However, we will omit the benediction!"-- and the next instant there was a vacancy in the atmosphere where he had stood.
After the first shock, an Oakland minister said: "Keep your seats! There is no better place to die than this"-- And added, after the third: "But outside is good enough!" He then skipped out at the back door.
Such another destruction of mantel ornaments and toilet bottles as the earthquake created, San Francisco never saw before.

There was hardly a girl or a matron in the city but suffered losses of this kind.

Suspended pictures were thrown down, but oftener still, by a curious freak of the earthquake's humor, they were whirled completely around with their faces to the wall! There was great difference of opinion, at first, as to the course or direction the earthquake traveled, but water that splashed out of various tanks and buckets settled that.