onflagration? What is the watchman doing?
Shall the town burn up before he begins to sound the alarm?"

The whole crowd stopped before the shoemaker's little house in the
suburbs, the little house that had vines climbing about the doors
and windows, and in front, between street and house, a yard-wide
garden. Summer-houses of straw, arbors fit for a mouse, paths for a
kitten. Everything in the best of order! Peas and beans, roses and
lavender, a mouthful of grass, three gooseberry bushes and an
apple-tree.

The street boys who stood nearest stared and consulted. Through the
shining, black window-panes their glances penetrated no further
than to the white lace curtains. One of the boys climbed up on the
vines and pressed his face against the pane. "What do you see?"
whispered the others. "What do you see?" The shoemaker's shop and
the shoemaker's bench, grease-pots and bundles of leather, lasts
and pegs, rings and straps. "Don't you see anybody?" He sees the
apprentice, who is repairing a shoe. Nobody else, nobody else? Big,
black flies crawl over the pane and make his sight uncertain. "Do
you see nobody except the apprentice?" Nobody. The master's chair
is empty. He looked once, twice, three times; the master's chair
was empty.

The crowd stood still, guessing and wondering. So it was true; the
old shoemaker had absconded. Nobody would believe it. They stood
and waited for a sign. The cat came out on the steep roof. He
stretched out his claws and slid down to the gutter. Yes, the
master was away, the cat could hunt as he pleased. The sparrows
fluttered and chirped, quite helpless.

A white chicken looked round the corner of the house. He was almost
full-grown. His comb shone red as wine. He peered and spied, crowed
and called. The hens came, a row of white hens at full speed,
bodies rocking, wings fluttering, yellow legs like drumsticks. The
hens hopped among the stacked peas. Battles began. Envy broke out.
A hen fled with a full pea-pod. Two cocks pecked her in the neck.
The cat left the sparrow nests to look on. Plump, there he fell
down in the midst of the flock. The hens fled in a long, scurrying
line. The crowd thought: "It must be true that the shoemaker has
run away. One can see by the cat and the hens that the master is
away."

The uneven street, muddy from the autumn rains, resounded with
talk. Doors stood open, windows swung. Heads were put together in
wondering whisperings. "He has run off." The people