It had begun in the night while Isaac was expounding his views on snuff boxes, tunnels, and Voltaire to Peter and Jack, had followed Jack across the river and had continued to soak into his clothes until he opened Mrs.Hicks's front door with his private key.

It was still pelting away the next morning, when Jack, alarmed at its fury, bolted his breakfast, and, donning his oilskins and rubber boots, hurried to the brick office from whose front windows he could get a view of the fill, the culvert, and the angry stream, and from whose rear windows could be seen half a mile up the raging torrent, the curve of the unfinished embankment flanking one side of the new boulevard which McGowan was building under a contract with the village.
Hardly had he slipped off his boots and tarpaulins when MacFarlane, in mackintosh and long rubber boots, splashed in: "Breen," said his Chief, loosening the top button of his storm coat and threshing the water from his cap: Jack was on his feet in an instant: "Yes, sir." "I wish you would take a look at the boulevard spillway.

I know McGowan's work and how he skins it sometimes, and I'm getting worried.
Coggins says the water is backing up, and that the slopes are giving way.

You can see yourself what a lot of water is coming down--" here they both gazed through the open window.

"I never saw that stream look like that since I've been here; there must be a frightful pressure now on McGowan's retaining walls.