d hear paid not much attention.

But when someone knocked on Mrs. Calvert's door with a terrific thud,
and yelled, "Fire! Fire! All out! Use stairs to the left!" all three,
Aunt Betty, Dorothy and Alfy, were out of their beds with unhesitating
promptness, and remarkably scared at that.

"Fire! Fire!" rang through the air, and they could hear the bell-boys
thump, thump, thump on each door.

"Put on your slippers and kimona and come at once!" commanded Aunt
Betty, suiting actions to her words. "Come, Alfy, Dorothy, this way
out!"

Very quickly, indeed, the girls, too bewildered to do much else but
obey orders, followed close by, Alfy picking up her hat and a few
other articles as she ran through her room.

"This way, ladies," called the bell-boy. "This way. No danger, only
it's best to get out. Use this stair."

Aunt Betty and the girls quickly gained the stairs, and ran down as
fast as they could, one after the other. On reaching the main floor
they heard the call of another attendant. "All step outside and across
the street." So they followed quietly on and outside till they stood
on the opposite side of the street.

There were assembled a couple of hundred people, mainly guests of the
hotel, most of them more or less asleep and very scantily clothed in
garments hastily assumed. Some of the women and children were sobbing,
and most of them shivering. Looking up at the hotel, Dorothy tried to
locate just where the fire was. She finally discovered a little flame
and smoke curling up from the wing of the hotel, not where their rooms
were, but far above, near the top floors. Quickly she ran her eye down
and counted the floors, finding that the fire was on the tenth and
eleventh floors.

Suddenly it came to her that her priceless violin, her precious
Cremona, was back there in their rooms on the seventh floor. Suddenly
she slipped away from Aunt Betty and started toward the building.
Swiftly she made her way through the crowd, and very quietly passed
the firemen and bell-boys who stood about the entrance to the burning
building. In a second she was past them, and on her way up the long
stairs as she knew that the elevators were not running, and would not
take her up if they were. She felt sure that she could get to the room
and return with safety without being missed.

In the meantime, Jim, who had not awakened at the first alarm, almost
frantic at not being able to discover Aunt Betty and the girls, was
wanderin