So quickly was this order filled that on the twelfth day after the arrival of the cablegram, the ships were on their way to Messina with the lumber.

After the Kansas City flood of 1903, when the drenched city was without railways or street-cars or electric lights, it was the telephone that held the city together and brought help to the danger-spots.

And after the Baltimore fire, the telephone exchange was the last force to quit and the first to recover.

Its girls sat on their stools at the switchboard until the window-panes were broken by the heat.

Then they pulled the covers over the board and walked out.
Two hours later the building was in ashes.