fore it springs. Both
the girls tried to stop us. The one I liked best seized my watch, and
said, 'Leave this to me to take care of,' and I had no time to wrestle
for it. I had a glimpse of her face that let me think she was not fooling
me, the watch-chain flew off my neck, Temple and I clove through the
crowd of gapers. We got into the heat, which was in a minute scorching.
Three men were under the window; they had sung out to the old woman above
to drop a blanket--she tossed them a water-jug. She was saved by the
blanket of a neighbour. Temple and I strained at one corner of it to
catch her.

She came down, the men said, like a singed turkey. The flames illuminated
her as she descended. There was a great deal of laughter in the crowd,
but I was shocked. Temple shared the painful impression produced on me. I
cannot express my relief when the old woman was wrapped in the blanket
which had broken her descent, and stood like a blot instead of a figure.
I handed a sovereign to the three men, complimenting them on the humanity
of their dispositions. They cheered us, and the crowd echoed the cheer,
and Temple and I made our way back to the two girls: both of us lost our
pocket-handkerchiefs, and Temple a penknife as well. Then the engines
arrived and soused the burning houses. We were all in a crimson mist,
boys smoking, girls laughing and staring, men hallooing, hats and caps
flying about, fights going on, people throwing their furniture out of the
windows. The great wall of the Bench was awful in its reflection of the
labouring flames--it rose out of sight like the flame-tops till the
columns of water brought them down. I thought of my father, and of my
watch. The two girls were not visible. 'A glorious life a fireman's!'
said Temple.

The firemen were on the roofs of the houses, handsome as Greek heroes,
and it really did look as if they were engaged in slaying an enormous
dragon, that hissed and tongued at them, and writhed its tail, paddling
its broken big red wings in the pit of wreck and smoke, twisting and
darkening-something fine to conquer, I felt with Temple.

A mutual disgust at the inconvenience created by the appropriation of our
pocket-handkerchiefs by members of the crowd, induced us to disentangle
ourselves from it without confiding to any one our perplexity for supper
and a bed. We were now extremely thirsty. I had visions of my majority
bottles of Burgundy, lying under John Thresher's care at Dipwell, an