That night, after getting my policy, I set fire to the house and started
through the woods to town, two miles away, where I managed to be found
about the time the excitement was at its height. With cries of
apprehension for the fate of my parents, I joined the rush and arrived
at the fire some two hours after I had kindled it. The whole town was
there as I dashed up. The house was entirely consumed, but in one end of
the level bed of glowing embers, bolt upright and uninjured, was that
book-case! The curtains had burned away, exposing the glass-doors,
through which the fierce, red light illuminated the interior. There
stood my dear father "in his habit as he lived," and at his side the
partner of his joys and sorrows. Not a hair of them was singed, their
clothing was intact. On their heads and throats the injuries which in
the accomplishment of my designs I had been compelled to inflict were
conspicuous. As in the presence of a miracle, the people were silent;
awe and terror had stilled every tongue. I was myself greatly affected.


Some three years later, when the events herein related had nearly faded
from my memory, I went to New York to assist in passing some counterfeit
United States bonds. Carelessly looking into a furniture store one day,
I saw the exact counterpart of that bookcase. "I bought it for a trifle
from a reformed inventor," the dealer explained. "He said it was
fireproof, the pores of the wood being filled with alum under hydraulic
pressure and the glass made of asbestos. I don't suppose it is really
fireproof--you can have it at the price of an ordinary book-case."

"No," I said, "if you cannot warrant it fireproof I won't take it"--and
I bade him good morning.

I would not have had it at any price: it revived memories that were