to-morrow to talk
over this matter of the fortune. Fires are usually bad in that
neighbourhood. Look well after mother. Good-night."

In another moment he was gone.

And well might Frank look grave, for when a fireman is called to a fire
in Tooley Street, or any part of the docks, he knows that he is about to
enter into the thickest of the Great Fight. To ordinary fires he goes
light-heartedly--as a bold trooper gallops to a skirmish, but to a fire
in the neighbourhood of the docks he goes with something of the feeling
which must fill the breast of every brave soldier on the eve of a great
battle.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

THE FIRE IN TOOLEY STREET.

One of those great calamities which visit us once or twice, it may be,
in a century, descended upon London on Saturday, the 22nd of June, 1861.
It was the sudden, and for the time, overwhelming, attack of an old and
unconquerable enemy, who found us, as usual, inadequately prepared to
meet him.

Fire has fought with us and fed upon us since we became a nation, and
yet, despite all our efforts, its flames are at this day more furious
than ever. There are more fires daily in London now than there ever
were before. Has this foe been properly met? is a question which
naturally arises out of this fact. Referring to the beautiful
organisation of the present Fire Brigade, the ability of its chiefs and
the courage of its men, the answer is, Yes, decidedly. But referring to
the strength of the brigade; to the munitions of war in the form of
water; to the means of conveyance in the form of mains; to the system of
check in the shape of an _effective_ Act in reference to partition-walls
and moderately-sized warehouses; to the means of prevention in the shape
of prohibitions and regulations in regard to inflammable substances--
referring to all these things, the answer to the question, "Has the foe
been properly met?" is emphatically, _No_.

It is not sufficient to reply that a special inquiry has been made into
this subject; that steps are being actually taken to remedy the evils of
our system (or rather of our want of system) of fire prevention. Good
may or may not result from this inquiry: that is yet to be seen.
Meanwhile, the public ought to be awakened more thoroughly to the fact
that an enemy is and always has been abroad in our land, who might be,
_if we chose_, more effectively checked; who, if he has not yet attacked
our own particular dwelling, may take us b