blew up with loud reports. Of course everyone's first thought was that a
German plot was on to lay Horticultural Hall in ruins with dynamite. It
sounded such. No one thought it was merely these strange preserves that
had been working overtime in that furnace.

Women screamed and strong men made a dash for the door over prostrate
bodies. And then a lot more explosions took place. The firing became
general, as the reports say. Bottle after bottle shot its dread contents
into the fray, and many feeble persons was tromped on by the mob.

It wasn't any joke for a minute. The big jars, mostly loaded with
preserves, went off with heavy reports; then there was these smaller
bottles, filled with artificial ketchup and corked. They went off like
a battery of light field guns, putting down a fierce barrage of ketchup
on one and all. It was a good demonstration of the real thing, all right.
I ain't never needed any one since that to tell me what war is.

The crowd was two thirds out before any one realized just what kind of
frightfulness was going on. Then, amid shot and shell that would still
fly from time to time, the bravest, that hadn't been able to fight their
way out, stood by and picked up the wounded under fire and helped brush
their clothes off. The groans of the sufferers mingled with the hiss of
escaping ketchup.

Genevieve May was in hysterics from the minute the first high-powered
gun was fired. She kept screaming for everyone to keep cool. And at
last, when they got some kind of order, she went into a perfectly new
fit because her Frenchman was missing. She kept it up till they found
the poor man. He was found, without his crutch, at the far end of the
hall, though no one has ever yet figgered how he could get there through