'Children! children! open the door, quick! The hall is full of smoke.'
The girlish tones were emphasised by most undoubtedly manly thumps. Jack hesitated, but Gussie flew to turn the key.
Lilian Phillips rushed in, followed closely by a tall stranger. The draught from the open door located the origin of the smoke only too easily. The schoolroom curtains burst into flames!
Gussie ran up to her elder sister. Jack, the bold, the self-reliant, was momentarily paralysed.
It was the stranger who jumped on the sofa, and tore those curtains down—crushing them with his hands—- stamping on them till the flames were extinguished, finally emerging from the smoking curtain with singed hair and beard, and shaking his scorched fingers, but otherwise calm and unruffled.
'Hullo, young man! Are you responsible for all this? What had you been up to? Guy Fawkes' Day is long past. All right, Lilian, don't bother about me. I'm not hurt—though I'm afraid as much cannot be said for the curtains.
'Oh, George, what should we have done without you? What a mercy it was you caught the afternoon train. What were you two children doing?' gasped Lilian, almost in one breath.
'Gussie wasn't doing anything!' asserted Jack, stoutly. 'I had lit a candle. I don't see how that could have set the curtains on fire, though,' he added, gazing open-eyed at the stranger called 'George,' and trying to get between him and the fender.
'What did you do with the match?' demanded George, curtly.
'Chucked it away!' came the reply, with equal brevity.