"Then how do they get these grand situations?"
"How do they get 'em! Luck, my boy. But, I say, your mater knows how to make ripping good fruit-cakes."
"I'm glad you like them," said Henry, but his thoughts were far away, where Luck the Goddess reigned. "And do you intend to go to London some day—to stay, I mean?"
"As likely as not. My time will come, ha, ha! as the heavy villain hath it. Everybody gets his chance, don't you know. For all that, there's many a jolly good journalist never gets a show in Fleet Street. But what's the row?" he exclaimed abruptly, as the noise of hurrying feet and the sound of a policeman's whistle rang out in the evening quiet.
Stepping to the window, he saw the hand-pump and hose being wheeled along the street from the police station across the way, and a crowd of youngsters running after it.
"A fire!" he exclaimed. "I must look slippy, by Jingo! Come along with me. There's ten bob of lineage in this if I'm first on the spot, and it's a decent blaze. Worth while living near the station."
He had his hat on his head in a jiffy, and Henry hurried with him, intent on seeing the journalist at work. The fire proved to be at a brewery, and did considerable damage before it was got under. In the excitement of the scene Henry lost his friend, who flitted from point to point gleaning information, and looking quite the most important figure present. He had got ahead of Griffin, the Times reporter; his ten shillings for duplicating reports to the daily papers seemed likely enough. They were as good as spent already—a new hat for one thing, and some new neckties for another.
The effect of the episode on Henry was fateful. He had been present throughout the scene, he had seen the frightened horses being rescued from the flaming stable, and had read about it all to the extent of twenty lines in next morning's Birmingham Gazette—twenty glowing lines from the pencil of Mr. Trevor Smith—twenty lines in which the "conflagration" burned again.
He had tasted blood. This was better fun than idling the hours away with Mr. Ephraim Griggs. The Temple of Literature had been a disappointment.
Here was Life.