oors,
an' between the lath, and plaster, and the walls. The moment the door
in the bath-room was opened all this gas took light an' blowed up like
gunpowder. The whole inner skin o' the beautiful drawing-room, ma'am,
was blowed into the middle of the room. The cook, who was in the
drawin'-room passage, she was blow'd down stairs; the workman as opened
the little door, he was blow'd flat on his back; an' the missis, as was
standin' with her back to a door, she was lifted off her legs and blow'd
right through the doorway into a bedroom."

"Gracious!" exclaimed the horrified Mrs Denman, "was she killed?"

"No, ma'am, she warn't killed. Be good luck they was only stunned an'
dreadful skeared, but no bones was broken."

Mrs Denman found relief in a sigh.

"Well, ma'am," continued Joe, "let me advise you to sweep yer chimleys
once a month. When your chimley gets afire the sparks they get out, and
when sparks get out of a windy night there's no tellin' what they won't
light up. It's my opinion, ma'am, that them as makes the laws should
more nor double the fines for chimleys goin' afire. But suppose, ma'am,
your house gets alight in spite of you--well then, the question is
what's best to do?"

Mrs Denman nodded her old head six or seven times, as though to say,
"That is precisely the question."

"I'll tell you, ma'am,"--here Joe held up the fore-finger of his right
hand impressively. "In the first place, every one in a house ought to
know all the outs and ins of it, 'cause if you've got to look for things
for the first time when the cry of `Fire' is raised, it's not likely
that you'll find 'em. Now, d'ye know, or do the servants know, or does
anybody in the house know, where the trap in the roof is?"

Mrs Denman appeared to meditate for a minute, and then said that she
was not sure. She herself did not know, and she thought the servants
might be ignorant on the point, but she rather thought there was an old
one in the pantry, but they had long kept a cat, and so didn't require
it.

"Och!" exclaimed Joe, with a broad grin, "sure it's a trap-door I'm
spakin' of."

Mrs Denman professed utter ignorance on this point, and when told that
it ought to be known to every one in the house as a mode of escape in
the event of fire, she mildly requested to know what she would have to
do if there were such a trap.

"Why, get out on the roof to be sure," (Mrs Denman shivered) "and get
along the tiles to the next house,"