people throwing their furniture out of the windows. The great wall of
the Bench was awful in its reflection of the labouring flames--it rose
out of sight like the flame-tops till the columns of water brought them
down. I thought of my father, and of my watch. The two girls were not
visible. 'A glorious life a fireman's!' said Temple.

The firemen were on the roofs of the houses, handsome as Greek heroes,
and it really did look as if they were engaged in slaying an enormous
dragon, that hissed and tongued at them, and writhed its tail, paddling
its broken big red wings in the pit of wreck and smoke, twisting and
darkening-something fine to conquer, I felt with Temple.

A mutual disgust at the inconvenience created by the appropriation of our
pocket-handkerchiefs by members of the crowd, induced us to disentangle
ourselves from it without confiding to any one our perplexity for supper
and a bed. We were now extremely thirsty. I had visions of my majority
bottles of Burgundy, lying under John Thresher's care at Dipwell, and
would have abandoned them all for one on the spot. After ranging about
the outskirts of the crowd, seeking the two girls, we walked away, not so
melancholy but that a draught of porter would have cheered us. Temple
punned on the loss of my watch, and excused himself for a joke neither of
us had spirit to laugh at. Just as I was saying, with a last glance at
the fire, 'Anyhow, it would have gone in that crowd,' the nice good girl
ran up behind us, crying, 'There!' as she put the watch-chain over my
head.

'There, Temple,' said I, 'didn't I tell you so?' and Temple kindly
supposed so.

The girl said, 'I was afraid I'd missed you, little fellow, and you'd