ed with joy, and this time woke Dolly, who thought
it was a calamity, and wept. Fully five minutes of incoherent rejoicing
followed, and then details might be rounded off. The fireman had to
stand by his engine on the night-shift in an hour's time, but he saw his
way to a pipe, and lit it.

"They're always interested to hear the ending-up of things at the
Station," said he, to account for himself and his presence, "and I made
it convenient to call round at the Ward. The party that took the child
from me happened to be there, and knew me again." He, of course--but you
would guess this--was Peter Jackson of Engine 67A. He continued:--"The
party was so obliging as to take me into the Ward to the bedside. And it
was while I was there the little chap began talking. The party asked me
to step in and mention it to you, ma'am, or his uncle, seeing it was in
my road to the Station." Then Peter Jackson seemed to feel his words
needed extenuation or revision. "Not but I would have gone a bit out of
the way, for that matter!" said he.

"'Twouldn't be any use my looking round now, I suppose?" said Uncle Mo.
Because he always was that restless and fidgety.

"Wait till to-morrow, they said, the party and the nurse. By reason the
child might talk a bit and then get some healthy sleep. What he's had
these few days latterly don't seem to count." Thus Peter Jackson, and
Uncle Moses said he had seen the like. And then all three of them made
the place smokier and smokier you could hardly make out across the room.

"Mo's an impatient old cock, you see!" said Mr. Alibone, who seemed to
understand Peter Jackson, and _vice versa_. And Uncle Mo said:--"I
suppose I shall have to mark time." To which the others replied that was
about it.

"Only whatever did the young child say, mister?" said Aunt M'riar; like
a woman's curiosity, to know. But those other two, they was curious
underneath-like; only denied it.

"I couldn't charge my memory for certain, ma'am," said Peter Jackson,
"and might very easy be wrong." He appeared to shrink from the
responsibility of making a report, but all his hearers were agreed that
there was no call to cut things so very fine as all that. A rough
outline would meet the case.

"If it ran to nonsense in a child," said Uncle Mo--"after all, what
odds?" And Aunt M'riar said:--"Meanin' slips through the words
sometimes, and no fault to find." She had not read "Rabbi Ben Ezra," so
this was original.

Peter Jackson