CHAPTER XIV.
THE MAN OF THE WORLD.
When the man who hangs there with such a weight upon his left arm feels that he cannot endure the strain five seconds longer, a voice shouts out just at his feet:
“Drop her down to me!”
Brawny arms are outstretched, and the woman, falling from his nerveless clasp, is caught and held. Now that he can change his position Wycherley is not so hard set, and manages without assistance to lower himself.
It has been an exceedingly narrow escape, for hardly has he reached the lower roof when, looking up, he beholds the greedy tongues of fire crawling over the edge at the very point where he held on with such grim resolution.
A scuttle has been torn open, and through this the woman has been taken. Wycherley would linger, but the firemen tell him nothing can save this house from sharing the fate of its neighbor, and that he had better lose no time in making good his escape.
So he, too, crawls through the scuttle. Even in such dire distress and under such peculiarly unromantic conditions his sense of humor does not desert him, and he chuckles more than once while making his way to the street. When tenements burn there are sad enough sights, Heaven knows, but at the same time many comical ones crop up, for people in the mad excitement may be seen hugging feather beds, while tossing pictures, mirrors, and every fragile object out of the window.
Hardly has he reached the street than someone near by says:
“There he is.”