friend out of Drayton House; and with a certain
want of candour that characterises the weak,
proceeded to black his other bad masters' shoes
with singular assiduity.

There was no wind to blow the flame; but it
was a clear frost; and soon fiery tongues shot
out of three garret-windows into the night, and
lurid gleams burnished four more, and the old
house was burning merrily overhead, and ringing
with hilarity on the first floor.

But the neighbours saw, pointed, wondered,
comprehended, shouted, rang, knocked, and
surged round the iron gate. "Fire! fire! fire!"
and "Fire!" went down the road, and men on
horseback galloped for engines; and the
terror-stricken porter opened and the people rushed in
and hammered at the hall doors, and, when Rooke
ran down and opened, " Fire!" was the word
that met him from a score of eager throats and
glittering eyes.

"Fire! Where?" he cried.

"Where! Why, you are on fire. Blazing!"

He ran out and looked up at the tongues of
flame and volleys of smoke. " Shut the gate,"
he roared. " Call the police. Fire! fire!" And
he dashed back, and calling to the other keepers
to unlock all the doors they had keys of, ran up to
the garrets to see what could be done. He came
out awe-stricken at what he saw. He descended
hastily to the third floor. Now the third floor
of that wing was occupied principally by servants.
In fact, the only patients at that time were Dodd
and Alfred. Rooke called to the men below to
send Hayes up to No. 75 with his key directly:
he then ran down to the next floor; of which he
had keys; and opened all the doors, and said to
the inmates with a ghastly attempt at cheerfulness,
belied by his shaking voice, "Get up,
gentlemen; there is a ball and supper going on
below." He was afraid to utter the word "fire"
to them. The other keepers were as rapid, each
on his beat, and soon the more rational patients
took the alarm and were persuaded or driven out
half dressed into the yard, where they cowered
together in extremity of fear; for the fire began
to roar overhead like a lion, and lighted up the
whole interior red and bright. All was screaming
and confusion; and then came a struggle
to get the incurable out from the basement story.
There was no time to handcuff them. The
keepers trusted to the terror of the scene to cow
them, and so opened the doors and got them out
anyhow. Wild, weird forms, with glaring eyes
and matted hair, leaped out and ran into the
hall, and laughed, and danced, and cursed in
the lurid reflexion of the fires above. Hell
seemed discharging demons. Men recoiled from
them. And well they did; for now the skylight
exploded, and the pieces fell tinkling on the
marble hall fast as hail. The crowd recoiled and
ran; but those awful figures continued their
gambols. One picked up the burning glass and
ground it in his hands that bled directly: but he
felt neither burn nor .cut. The keepers rushed
in to withdraw them from so dangerous a place:
all but one obeyed with sudden tameness: that
one struggled and yelled like a demon. In the
midst of which fearful contest came a sudden
thundering at a door on the third floor.

"What is that?" cried Rooke.

"It is Mr. Hardie," screamed the Robin. "You
have left him locked in."

"I told Hayes to let him out long ago."

"But Hayes hasn't got the key. You've got
it."

"No, no. I tell you Hayes has got it."

"No, no! Murder! murder! They are dead
men. Run for Mrs. Archbold, somebody. Run!
Here, hammers, hammers! for God's sake come
and help me break the door. Oh Rooke, Rooke!"

"As I'm a man Hayes has got the key," cried
Rooke, stamping on the ground, and white with
terror.

By this time Garrett had got a hammer, and
he and Wales rushed wildly up the stairs to
batter in the strong door if they could. They
got to the third floor, but with difficulty; the
smoke began to blind them and choke them, and
fiery showers fell on them, and drove them back
smarting and choking. Garrett sank down gasping
at the stair-foot. Wales ran into the yard
uttering pitiful cries, and pointing wildly
upwards: but before he got there, a hand had
broken through the glass of a window up in the
third floor, the poor white hand of a perishing
prisoner, and clutched the framework and tore
at it.

At this hand a thousand white faces were now
upturned amid groans of pity and terror, such as
only multitudes can utter. Suddenly those
anxious faces and glistening eyes turned like one,
for an attempt, wild and unintelligible, but still an
attempt, was about to be made to save that hand
and its owner out of the very jaws of death.

Now amongst the spectators was one whose
life and reason were at stake on that attempt.

Mrs. Dodd was hurrying homeward from this
very neighbourhood when the fire broke out.
Her son Edward was coming at nine o'clock to
tea, and, better still, to sleep. He was leaving
the fire brigade. It had disappointed him; he
found the fire-escape men saved the lives, the
firemen only the property. He had gone into
the business earnestly too; he had invented a
thing like a treble pouch hook, which could
be fastened in a moment to the end of a rope,
and thrown into the window, and would cling
to the bare wall, if there was nothing better,
and enable him to go up and bring life down.
But he had never got a chance to try it; and,
per contra, he was on the engine when they
went tearing over a woman and broke her arm
and collar-bone in the Blackfriars-road: and
also when they went tearing over their own
fire-dog and crippled him. All this seemed out
of character, and shocked Edward: and then his
mother could not get over the jacket.

In a quarter of an hour he was to take off the
obnoxious jacket for ever, and was now lounging