"The police!" Hezekiah muttered. "I must set fire to the house
and escape in the confusion."

He struck a safety match and held it to the leg of the table.

It was a fireproof table and refused to burn. He held it to the
door. The door was fireproof. He applied it to the bookcase.
He ran the match along the books. They were all fireproof.
Everything was fireproof.

Frenzied with rage, he tore off his celluloid collar and set
fire to it. He waved it above his head. Great tongues of flame
swept from the windows.

"Fire! Fire!" was the cry.

Hezekiah rushed to the door and threw the blazing collar down
the elevator shaft. In a moment the iron elevator, with its
steel ropes, burst into a mass of flame; then the brass fittings
of the door took fire, and in a moment the cement floor of the
elevator was one roaring mass of flame. Great columns of smoke
burst from the building.

"Fire! Fire!" shouted the crowd.

Reader, have you ever seen a fire in a great city? The sight
is a wondrous one. One realises that, vast and horrible as the
city is, it nevertheless shows its human organisation in its
most perfect form.