engine-house, and unlocking it, had seized the long rope attached to the
engine. There were enough who joined him to rush out into the street the
clumsy machine. There they received large re-enforcements.

"Where is the fire?" bawled the foreman.

Nobody knew.

"Where is the fire, Simes?" the bell-ringer was asked as the engine
rattled toward the church-door.

"Miss Persnips!"

Simes meant not the place of the fire, but the source of the information.

"Miss Persnips's house is afire!" shouted the engine-men. It was enough.
They rushed for that lady's place, and seeing a column of smoke above her
roof, concluded that its source was directly below, and stopping at a pump
this side of her house, ran their hose down into the well. They were
working the brakes at a lively rate and preparing for a thorough
bombardment of the building, when fortunately she appeared, screaming,
"Fire is over there, beyond the woods!"

The smoke had now shifted its coarse, and rolling away from Miss
Persnips's, hung in a dark, sullen cloud above the forest but a little way
off.

Away went the engine and its allies, sweeping along men and boys, and also
every able-bodied member of the Up-the-Ladder Club whose legs could carry
him. Down past shops and houses and farms rushed the crowd, pulling along