ently enjoying the
situation.

"How can you be so reckless, Jack, as to keep a fire in such a
chimney?"

"The chimneys are all right, my dear. I took special pains with them
when the house was built. The only danger there ever was lay in that
little piece of inch board that happened to be too near the pipe."

"And how are we to know what other little pieces of board may be too
near? I think it's a very dangerous house to live in. If we hadn't gone
up to the attic when we did it would have been all in flames."

"And we shouldn't have gone to the attic at all if my windows had been
proof against the east wind."

"No, nor would you have known we were having a gale from the northeast
if I hadn't quoted the 'Wreck of the Hesperus.'"

[Illustration: NO CONCEALMENT OR DISGUISE.]

"Consequently we owe our preservation to the well-beloved poet."

"Moral: Study the poets."

"Moral number two: Build leaky casements."

"Number three: When the wood around a chimney takes fire it doesn't
prove a 'defective flue.'"

"Number four: A small fault hidden is more dangerous than a large one
in sight."

"Very true; and if modern builders had kept to the poet's standard,
and, like those in the elder days of art,

'wrought with greatest care,
Each minute and hidden part,'

we should not be trembling before a black and ragged chasm in the wall,
afraid to go to bed lest the fire should break out anew and burn us in
our sleep."

"There's not the least danger. We are as safe as a barrel of gunpowder
in a mill pond. There is nothing to set us on fire. That bit of dry
wood was the key to the whole situation. We have captured that and can
make our own terms. Still, if you feel nervous we will sit up and 'talk
house' till the fire goes out."

Jill acceded to this proposal and began to discourse, taking moral
number four for a text.

"I wish it were possible," said she, "to build a house with everything
in plain sight, the chimneys, the hot-air pipes from the furnace, if
there are any, the steam pipes, the ventilators, the gas pipes, the
water pipes, the speaking tubes, the cranks and wires for the
bells--whatever really belongs to the building. They might all be
decorated if that would make them more interesting, but even if they
were quite unadorned they ought not to be ugly. If we could see them we
shouldn't feel that we are surrounded by hidden mysteries liable at any
time to explode or break loose upon us unawares