t it down, horridly, three times. Three shrieks flitted from
her corner like sparks from a funnel. But her passage was cleared.

Then some important fool pulled the fire-alarm.

"Stanback, Stinkpot, cancher? Gawd, if I cop that young 'un wi' the
bashed 'elmet, I'll learn him hell!"

"If I cop 'old of the blanker what trod on my 'and, I'll----!"

"No, but--'e 'ad a rummy 'at on. 'E 'ad."

Away distant, one heard the brazen voice of the fire-engine, clanging
danger through the yellow maze of Hoxton streets. There was the jangle
of harness and bells; the clop-clop of hoofs, rising to a clatter. There
was the scamper of a thousand feet as the engine swung into the street
with the lordliest flourish and address. Close behind it a long, lean
red thing swayed to and fro, like some ancient dragon seeking its
supper.

"Whichway, whichway, whichway?" it roared.

"Ever bin had?" cried the humorist. "There ain't no pleading fire! This
is a picnic, this is. 'Ave a banana?"

"WhichWAY?" screamed the engine. "Don't no one know which way?"

The humorist answered them by a gesture known in polite circles as a
"raspberry." Then a constable, with fierce face, battered helmet, and
torn tunic, and with an arm-lock on a perfectly innocent non-combatant,
flung commands in rapid gusts--

"This way, Fire. King's name. Out hoses!"

The fog rolled and rolled. The Britannia gleamed on the scene with
almost tragic solemnity. Agonized shapes rushed hither and thither.
Women screamed. Then a rich Irish voice sang loud above all: "Weeny,
boys!"

As the firemen leaped from their perches on the engine to out hoses, so,
mysteriously, did the combat cease. Constables found themselves, in a
moment, wrestling with thick fog and nothing more. The boys were gone.
Only women screamed.

Some one said: "If I cop a hold of the blankety blank blanker what trod
on my blanking 'and, I'll just about----!"

On the word "Weeny" Simple Simon was once again jerked by the arm, and
hustled furiously down passages, round corners, and through alleyways,
finally to be flung into the misty radiance of Shoreditch High Street,
with the terse farewell: "Now run--for the love of glory, run!"

But he didn't. He stood still against a friendly wall, and suffered. He
straightened his dress. He touched sore places with a tender solicitude.
His head was racking. All his limbs ached and burned. He desired nothing
but the cold sheets of his bed and a bottle of embrocatio