"We had given you up," said Chowles, "and fearing you intended us some treachery, were about to do the job without you."
"I have been unavoidably detained," replied Grant. "Let us about it at once."
"I have got the fire-balls with me," observed Hubert.
"It is well," returned Grant.
Quitting the cathedral, they proceeded to Thames-street, and tracking it to Fish-street-hill, struck off on the right into an alley that brought them to Pudding-lane.
"This is the house," said Chowles, halting before a two-storied wooden habitation, over the door of which was suspended the sign of the "Wheat Sheaf, with the name THOMAS FARRYNER, BAKER, inscribed beneath it.
"And here," said Hubert, "shall begin the great fire of London."
As he said this, he gave a fire-ball to Solomon Eagle, who lighted the fuze at Chowles's lantern. The enthusiast then approached a window of the baker's shop, and breaking a small pane of glass within it, threw the fire-ball into the room. It alighted upon a heap of chips and fagots lying near a large stack of wood used for the oven, and in a few minutes the whole pile had caught and burst into a flame, which, quickly mounting to the ceiling, set fire to the old, dry, half-decayed timber that composed it.