"Marken?" repeated old Mr. King, looking up from the egg he was
carefully breaking for Phronsie so that she might eat it from the
shell. "So we were going there this morning. Well, we won't see that
island now for a good many days; at least, till we get over this
fright. Beside, we have things to settle here, and to get comfortably
fixed. But we'll have that excursion all in good time, never fear."

"Well, how did you, Mamsie," Polly begged again, "first hear of the
fire? Do tell me."

"Somebody made a good deal of noise down in the corridor," said Mother
Fisher, "and your father went out to see what was the matter, and then
he came back and told me what to do, and he took Phronsie and went for
old Mr. King. But he had sent a porter to warn them in 165, and they
would tell the Hendersons in the next room, before he ran upstairs to
me." It was a long speech for Mother Fisher.

"Mamsie," asked Polly, suddenly, after she had leaned across her mother
and beamed at the little doctor, which so delighted him that his big
spectacles nearly fell off in his plate, "how _did_ you know where
the fire-escape was?"

"Oh, that was your father's doings, too," said Mother Fisher. She
couldn't help but show her pride. "He told me all about it the first
day we got to the hotel. He always does; he says it's better to know
these things."

"Wife--wife," begged the little doctor, imploringly.