Holding on to her two friends, Tottie was swept along the streets at a rate which she had never before experienced—at least not as a foot-passenger,—and in a few minutes they were in Miss Lillycrop’s dwelling.
That excellent lady was in a state of dreadful perturbation, as well she might be, for the house was filled with a thin smoke of very peculiar odour.
Few persons except the initiated are fully alive to the immense importance of checking fire at its commencement. The smoke, although not dense enough to attract the attention of people outside, was sufficiently so to make those inside commence an anxious search, when they should have sent at once for the fire-engine.
Three families occupied the tenement. Miss Lillycrop’s portion was at the top. A dealer in oils and stores of a miscellaneous and unsavoury kind occupied the basement.
George Aspel at once suspected and made for this point, followed by Miss Lillycrop, who bade Tottie remain in her kitchen, with the intention of keeping her at once out of danger and out of the way.
“There’s certainly fire somewhere, Pax; run, call the engines out,” said Aspel, descending three steps at a time.
Pax took the last six steps at a bound, and rushed along the street, overturning in his flight two boys bigger than himself, and a wheelbarrow.
The owner of the cellars was absent and his door locked. Where was the key? No one knew, but George Aspel knew of a key that had done some service in times past. He retreated a few steps, and, rushing at the door with all his weight and momentum, dashed it in with a tremendous crash, and went headlong into the cellar, from out of which came belching flames and smoke. Re-issuing instantly therefrom with singed hair and glaring eyes, he found Miss Lillycrop lying on her back in a faint, where the fire and smoke had floored her. To gather her up and dash into the street was the work of a moment. Scarcely less rapid was the rush of the fire, which, having been richly fed and long pent up in the cellar, now dashed up the staircases like a giant refreshed.
Meanwhile little Pax ran headlong into a policeman, and was collared and throttled.
“Now then, young ’un!”