'my house is
burned to the ground. But heaven forbid that yours should be. Get your
answer. Be brief, in mercy to me.'

'Now, you hear this, my lord?'--said the old gentleman, calling up
the stairs, to where the skirt of a dressing-gown fluttered on the
landing-place. 'Here is a gentleman here, whose house was actually burnt
down last night.'

'Dear me, dear me,' replied a testy voice, 'I am very sorry for it, but
what am I to do? I can't build it up again. The chief magistrate of the
city can't go and be a rebuilding of people's houses, my good sir. Stuff
and nonsense!'

'But the chief magistrate of the city can prevent people's houses from
having any need to be rebuilt, if the chief magistrate's a man, and
not a dummy--can't he, my lord?' cried the old gentleman in a choleric
manner.

'You are disrespectable, sir,' said the Lord Mayor--'leastways,
disrespectful I mean.'

'Disrespectful, my lord!' returned the old gentleman. 'I was respectful
five times yesterday. I can't be respectful for ever. Men can't stand
on being respectful when their houses are going to be burnt over their
heads, with them in 'em. What am I to do, my lord? AM I to have any
protection!'

'I told you yesterday, sir,' said the Lord Mayor, 'that you might have
an alderman in your house, if you could get one to come.'

'What the devil's the good of an alderman?' returned the choleric old
gentleman.

'--To awe the crowd, sir,' said the Lord Mayor.

'Oh Lord ha' mercy!' whimpered the old gentleman, as he wiped his
forehead in a state of ludicrous distress, 'to think of sending an
alderman to awe a crowd! Why, my lord, if they were even so many babies,
fed on mother's milk, what do you think they'd care for an alderman!
Will YOU come?'

'I!' said the Lord Mayor, most emphatically: 'Certainly not.'

'Then what,' returned the old gentleman, 'what am I to do? Am I a
citizen of England? Am I to have the benefit of the laws? Am I to have
any return for the King's taxes?'

'I don't know, I am sure,' said the Lord Mayor; 'what a pity it is
you're a Catholic! Why couldn't you be a Protestant, and then you
wouldn't have got yourself into such a mess? I'm sure I don't know
what's to be done.--There are great people at the bottom of these
riots.--Oh dear me, what a thing it is to be a public character!--You
must look in again in the course of the day.--Would a javelin-man
do?--Or there's Philips the constable,--HE'S disengaged,--he's not very
o