ell. Or, coming out of all that strangeness of
the night, and the smoor and choking swirl of the smoke, he did not
know his own son. At any rate, he rushed at me with Elsie still in his
arms and the iron bar uplifted.

But Mr. Ablethorpe interposed from the flank, and catching him about
the waist, disarmed him.

"Mr. Yarrow!" he cried, "this is Joseph, your own son!"

My father blinked at me a moment, vaguely. Then, quite suddenly, he
thrust Elsie into my arms.

"There," he said, "take her. Be good to her. She calls you her
'Dearest Joe.' You will never deserve half your luck--you will never
know it. But as sure as my name is Joseph Yarrow, I will take it upon
me to see that you behave yourself decently well to that girl."

He was pretty much of a brick--father. At least, though he was only a
grocer, I don't know anybody else's father I would change him for. And
Elsie says so, too. I think, however--between ourselves--that he's
just a bit gone on Elsie himself, and thinks I'm not half good enough
for her.

Well, I'm not! I don't deny the fact; and as for Elsie--she encourages
us both in the belief.

CHAPTER XXXII

"THERE'S NAE LUCK ABOOT THE HOOSE"

There's a bit more to tell about this part, though you might not expect
it. It always makes me shiver to think of. But I could not help it.
Nobody could--and anyway, the thing has got to be told. It is about
Mad Jeremy, and what befell him when he fled upward through the smoke
and flame, clambering by the balusters, my father says, more like a
monkey than any human man.

And, by the way, I am not sure that he really was a man--except that a
wild beast would not have been so clever, and the devil ever so much
cleverer! Or, at least, he has the credit of being.

Did you ever see the burning of a great house--not in a city, I mean,
but far in the country? Well, I have. There is not much to see till
one is close by. A few pale, shivering flames, like the fires that
boil the tea at a summer picnic--volumes of smoke rising over the
parapet, mostly pale, and the sun serene above the scurry of helpless
men, running this way and that, like ants when you thrust your stick
into an ant hill to see what will happen. Hither and thither they
go--all busy, all doing nothing. For one thing, water is lacking. The
local fire brigade is always just about to arrive. If, by any chance,
it does come, a boy with a garden squirt would do more good.

Well,