“Oh, come on!” cried Mr. Polly, and seized her.
He got her into the attic, but the staircase, he found, was full of suffocating smoke, and he dared not venture below the next floor. He took her into a long dormitory, shut the door on those pungent and pervasive fumes, and opened the window to discover the fire escape was now against the house, and all Fishbourne boiling with excitement as an immensely helmeted and active and resolute little figure ascended. In another moment the rescuer stared over the windowsill, heroic, but just a trifle self-conscious and grotesque.
“Lawks a mussy!” said the old lady. “Wonders and Wonders! Why! it’s Mr. Gambell! ’Iding ’is ’ed in that thing! I never did!”
“Can we get her out?” said Mr. Gambell. “There’s not much time.”
“He might git stuck in it.”
“You’ll get stuck in it,” said Mr. Polly, “come along!”
“Not for jumpin’ I don’t,” said the old lady, understanding his gestures rather than his words. “Not a bit of it. I bain’t no good at jumping and I wunt.”
They urged her gently but firmly towards the window.
“You lemme do it my own way,” said the old lady at the sill....
“I could do it better if e’d take it off.”