Ah! how very old, yet ever new, is the word that man “knows not what an hour may bring forth!” Forces unseen, unthought of, are ever at work around us, from the effects of which, it may be, human strength is powerless to deliver.
That night, late—or rather, about the early hours of morning—a spark, which earlier in the night had fallen from the pipe of a drunkard in the public-house below, began to work its deadly way through the boarding of the floor. For a long time there was little smoke and no flame. Gradually, however, the spark grew to a burning mass, which created the draught of air that fanned it.
It chanced that night that, under the influence of some irresistible impulse or antagonistic affinity like a musical discord, Mrs Rampy and Mrs Blathers were discussing their friends and neighbours in the abode of the former, without the softening influence of the teapot and old Liz.
“I smells a smell!” exclaimed Mrs Rampy, sniffing.
“Wery likely,” remarked Mrs Blathers; “your ’ouse ain’t over-clean.”
But the insinuation was lost on Mrs Rampy, who was naturally keen of scent. She rose, ran to the window, opened it, thrust out her dishevelled head, and exclaimed “Fire!”
“No, it ain’t,” said her friend; “it’s on’y smoke.”
Unfortunately the two women wondered for a few precious minutes and ran out to the court, into which, from a back window of the public-house, smoke was slowly streaming. Just then a slight glimmer was seen in the same window.
“Fire! fire!” yelled Mrs Rampy, now thoroughly alarmed.
“Smoke! smo-o-o-oke!” shrieked Mrs Blathers. The two women were gifted with eminently persuasive lungs. All the surrounding courts and streets were roused in a few minutes, and poured into the lanes and alleys which led to Cherub Court.