Excitement at Pad-inked-on.
I don't quite know what you mean by speaking of a "holocaust" in connection with the recent disastrous conflagration which destroyed five whole streets and a hundred lives, but no doubt the cost willbe enough to make anybody holloa!
"Why have we to hire a boat to take us from the garden-gate to our front-door?" Oh, because five million gallons of water were poured down our street by the Fire-Brigade men the day before yesterday, and the Main Drainage system is only equal to removing a few gallons at a time.
Naturally the Water Companies have taken advantage of this state of things to suggest to householders that, as they have so much water in their cellars, they can do without any in their cisterns, and to announce therefore that the supply will be discontinued for a week.
Is it a fact that Insurance Premiums in Bayswater now vary in proportion to the distance from Westbourne Grove?
How curious that "two huge columns of fire" should produce at least half a dozen equally huge columns of print!
No, as you say, this wall-paper is not pretty, and walking on hard concrete-floors is a little unpleasant at first; but then, you see, they are both absolutely incombustible.
The Fire-engine in the Hall is certainly a little in the way of the servants; but then what a comfort it is to feel that with this precaution, andpowerful hydrants laid on to each floor, and sleeping in fire-proof beds with one's clothes on, andhaving an outside iron stair-case to each window in the house, we really are pretty safe against the next conflagration, in spite of the fact that we live just opposite a Universal Provider!