“Oh, you do smell smoke, do you? It’s about time. My golly, the house could burn down on top of you and you’d never wake up. Get into some clothes, quick. Remember where you put ’em? Lights are gone. Have to get something on in the dark. Hurry. Room’s full of smoke,” cried Jeff feeling about in places where he remembered putting his clothes.
He found his coat, trousers and shoes, and he made haste to get them all on, meanwhile feeling about him for his suit case that contained his baseball uniform. He found both his own and Wade’s together and seizing them he cried to Wade:
“Come on, for goodness’ sakes. We’re about the last ones in the building I guess.” Coughing with the smoke that was getting into his lungs as it swept through the room on the draught created by the open window, Jeff crossed the room, stumbling over various articles of clothing that strewed the room. Gropingly he reached the door and found the knob. A moment he waited as he called:
“Wade, are you ready?”
“Yes, let’s get out of here quick,” said Wade, bumping into him as he, too, groped for the door.
“All right. We’ve got to open the door and close it quickly though, because there is no telling what the draught might do in the way of bringing the fire this way. Ready. Let’s go.”
Jeff swung open the door and stepped out into the hall and Wade crowded close behind him. They slammed the door shut with a bang and looked around.
A dull red glow, ugly and sinister, lighted the long hall, and clouds of smoke, thick and black and disconcerting, rolled past them. The noises in the building had ceased but outside they could hear shouts and calls, the tooting of fire engines’ whistles, the sound of breaking glass and the swishing slosh and steady pounding of streams of water.
“My goodness, the firemen have their hose lines going already!” Jeff exclaimed to Wade. “We must be the last ones in the building. All the rest have cleared out long ago.”
“Yes, and I wonder if we are going to get out before we get trapped,” said Wade with an unmistakable note of concern in his voice.