were in the corridors ready for any emergency.
Had there been any wind in our direction, the hotel was doomed. The
night was calm and wet. As soon as we became aware that no lives were
lost or in danger in the burning building, and that it would only be a
question of insurance money to be paid by some companies, we betook
ourselves to admire the magnificent sight. For it was a magnificent
sight, this whole large building, the prey of flames coming in torrents
out of every window, the dogged perseverance of the firemen streaming
floods of water over the roof and through the windows, the salvage
corps men penetrating through the flames into the building in the hope
of receiving the next day a commission on all the goods and valuables
saved. A fierce battle it was between a brute element and man. By three
o'clock the element was conquered, but only the four walls of the
building remained, which proved to me that, with all their wonderful
promptitude and gallantry, all firemen can do when flames have got firm
hold on a building is to save the adjoining property.

[Illustration: A FIRE YARN.]

I listened to the different groups of people in the hotel. Some gave
advice as to how the firemen should set about their work, or criticised.
Others related the big fires they had witnessed, a few indulging in the
recital of the exploits they performed thereat. There are a good many
Gascons among the Americans. At four o'clock all danger was over, and we
all retired.

[Illustration: AS WE SAW IT.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: AS THE REPORTERS SAW IT.]

I was longing to read the descriptions of the fire in this morning's
papers. I have now read them and am not at all disappointed. On the
contrary, they are beyond my most sanguine expectations. Wonderful;
simply perfectly wonderful! I am now trying to persuade myself that I
really saw all that the reporters saw, and that I really ran great
danger last night. For, "at every turn," it appears, "the noble hotel
seemed as if it must become the prey of the fierce element, and could
only be saved by a miracle." Columns and columns of details most
graphically given, sensational, blood-curdling. But all that is nothing.
You should read about the panic, and the scenes of wild confusion in the
Burnet House, when all the good folks, who had all dressed and were
looking quietly at the fire from the windows, are described as a crowd
of people in despair: women dish