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door.
"Hi!" he repeated, "Fire!"
III
That was the beginning of the great Fishbourne fire, which burnt its
way sideways into Mr. Rusper's piles of crates and straw, and
backwards to the petrol and stabling of the Royal Fishbourne Hotel,
and spread from that basis until it seemed half Fishbourne would be
ablaze. The east wind, which had been gathering in strength all that
day, fanned the flame; everything was dry and ready, and the little
shed beyond Rumbold's in which the local Fire Brigade kept its manual,
was alight before the Fishbourne fire hose could be saved from
disaster. In marvellously little time a great column of black smoke,
shot with red streamers, rose out of the middle of the High Street,
and all Fishbourne was alive with excitement.
Much of the more respectable elements of Fishbourne society was in
church or chapel; many, however, had been tempted by the blue sky and
the hard freshness of spring to take walks inland, and there had been
the usual disappearance of loungers and conversationalists from the
beach and the back streets when at the hour of six the shooting of
bolts and the turning of keys had ended the British Ramadan, that
weekly interlude of drought our law imposes. The youth of the place
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