somewhere upstairs there! Precious moments passing! Suddenly he was

struck by an idea and vanished from public vision into the open door

of the Royal Fishbourne Tap.

And now the street was getting crowded and people were laying their

hands to this and that.

Mr. Rusper had been at home reading a number of tracts upon Tariff

Reform, during the quiet of his wife's absence in church, and trying

to work out the application of the whole question to ironmongery. He

heard a clattering in the street and for a time disregarded it, until

a cry of Fire! drew him to the window. He pencilled-marked the tract

of Chiozza Money's that he was reading side by side with one by Mr.

Holt Schooling, made a hasty note "Bal. of Trade say 12,000,000" and

went to look out. Instantly he opened the window and ceased to believe

the Fiscal Question the most urgent of human affairs.

"Good (kik) Gud!" said Mr. Rusper.

For now the rapidly spreading blaze had forced the partition into Mr.

Rumbold's premises, swept across his cellar, clambered his garden wall

by means of his well-tarred mushroom shed, and assailed the engine

house. It stayed not to consume, but ran as a thing that seeks a

quarry. Polly's shop and upper parts were already a furnace, and black

smoke was coming out of Rumbold's cellar gratings. The fire in the

engine house showed only as a sudden rush of smoke from the back, like

233

The History of Mr Polly