“Sit still, there’s nothing in it,
We’ll undertake to drown you in a single minute.”
“O vain thought!” as Othello says. Notwithstanding the boast in the epilogue—
“Blow, wind—come, rack, in ages yet unborn,
Our castle’s strength shall laugh a siege to scorn”—
The theatre fell a victim to the flames within fifteen years from the prognostic! These preparations against fire always presuppose presence of mind and promptness in those who are to put them into action. They remind one of the dialogue in Morton’s Speed the Plough, between Sir Able Handy and his son Bob:
“Bob. Zounds, the castle’s on fire!
Sir A. Yes.
Bob. Where’s your patent liquid for extinguishing fire?
Sir A. It is not fixed.