On all this Helen was now indefinitely reflecting, and of the man with whom she had seen it first she perhaps thought a little. But those were oblique thoughts, and hardly worth the name. All the experiences and impressions of the day—Isabel's departure from home, the wedding, the grave face of the old minister, the silence of the dim room in the parsonage, Charlie's subsequent comments, the dinnerà trois—all these mingled in her mind, and somehow seemed a part of the great night into which she gazed.
Yet there was an undercurrent of vague dissatisfaction in her reflections. All these things were true and vital, and she had been only a spectator, a visitor at the fair. Life had surged around her, but had touched her not at all, or lightly at best. Unconsciously her thoughts toward the sleeping city were as though she offered herself to it and to the life that bound it and swept through its veins. Presently, across the water, a clock began to strike the hour—midnight—and softened by the distance, the chimes came gently across the intervening space.
Helen roused herself a moment: midnight! Yet the blood that flushed her cheeks showed that sleep for her was still afar off. And so she sat, unmoving, while in the darkness above her the myriad stars moved slowly in their majestic courses.
The bringing of order out of chaos is one of the most interesting and also one of the most satisfying employments a person can have. Likewise it is usually one of the most exhausting, if the chaos has been really chaos and the order be really order. But the satisfaction of seeing, as the clouds break and the skies clear, the salient outline of the thing appear as it ought to appear is sufficient compensation for all the effort. Even if the work be no more elevated than washing up a trayful of soiled china, a certain thrill is there at the successful completion of the task; and the greater the Augean stable, the purer is the pleasure of him who cleans it.
When in the spring of this, his most eventful year, Smith had taken charge of the slipping, wavering, demoralized Guardian, the stable of Augeas there confronting him would perhaps have dismayed a less enthusiastic and a less determined man. Everything was at loose ends; under the shiftless hand of Gunterson even the fine insurance machine built up by Mr. Wintermuth in his best constructive days had suddenly grown to creak painfully in its joints. The heads of departments, seeing no inspiring or even efficient leadership above them, had become discouraged, and there had been no one to brace their failing spirits. Mr. Cuyler and Mr. Bartels in particular had felt the altered fortunes of the company more keenly than they had felt any business crisis in all their previous experience.
When Mr. Cuyler had witnessed his local business, his pride and his life, the fixed star of his professional soul, begin slipping away, his gloom, as has been told, was not to be lifted. But the case of Mr. Bartels was even more sad. Year after year had that painstaking official made up the current statement of the company's position, to be presented in silence to Mr. Wintermuth on the first business day of every month. Year after year had he carried this balance sheet to his chief and stolidly waited for the word of satisfaction which was always forthcoming, save in exceptional cases. For there had come to be a kind of sacred formula about it, and if that formula failed to materialize, the world was all awry for Mr. Bartels, until another month put matters right once more. And this, so placidly prosperous had the Guardian been, the succeeding month had seldom failed to do.
"Holding our own, Otto?" the President would inquire.
"Poohty good; losses is bad but premiums is up some, too," Mr. Bartels would usually reply; and Mr. Wintermuth, appreciating the impossibility of ever reaching a loss ratio low enough to meet the approval of his Teutonic subordinate, would scan the statement with little fear of the result. And then, after another little exchange of courtesies, this monthly playlet would end.
When the Guardian had first met the rough water, Mr. Bartels had not been able to understand that anything was amiss—that anything could be amiss—with the company whose inconspicuous prosperity had been an axiom of the Street. When, on the first day of February, he had taken off his first summary of January results, a little cloud of puzzled suspicion had gathered in his still blue eyes. After carefully checking his own figures he had rung for Dunham, the chief accountant, and it had been a querulous and angry summons.
"Here, dese figures is all wrong. You have January premiums pretty near fifteen per cent behind last year. Fix 'em."
But Dunham, chill as the Matterhorn, assured the excited little man that the figures were quite correct and that he had checked them twice to make certain.
"But—but—" said Bartels in bewilderment, "we cannot be going backwards like that! We have never gone back like that in January."
"Until this year," incautiously rejoined the other.
"No; nor this year, neither!" cried Mr. Bartels; and only his own thrice repeated checking of the premium sheets would convince him. Shaking a puzzled and resentful head, he at last sought his chief; with a hang-dog air he handed over his statement, and with heavy heart he waited for the President to speak.
Speech was longer than usual in coming.
"Not quite so good?" the President said at last.
"No," said Mr. Bartels. "Rates must be off, I guess?"
"No, Otto," returned Mr. Wintermuth, slowly. "It's not a rate war. It is that we have had to give up some of our agencies in the East on account of the Conference separation rule. I am afraid we shall have to expect a certain decrease for a little while until things get readjusted. But it won't last; you needn't worry about that."
Unfortunately, however, it did last; and not only that, but it became more and more marked with each succeeding month. With the third statement, when the greatest inroads had been made into the Guardian's business, Mr. Bartels became like a living sepulcher. So heavy and sad was the heart he carried in his breast that not all the consoling words of his chief could stir him.
"I have seen agencies whose accounts I have passed for twenty years fall away to almost nothing or nothing at all. From Silas Osgood I get no March account; from Jones and Meers I get none. Every month for fifteen years have I written Jones and Meers to correct their adding; now I write them not at all." And there were many more.
Finally, when at last it dawned upon Mr. Bartels's Bavarian mind that the Guardian was really in peril and that unless something were done quickly, a large part of the remainder of the agents in the East would follow those already gone, his blind anger and resentment knew no bounds. He could not, however, understand the real facts in the case, and no one ever took the trouble fully to explain them to him. So his impotent rage, lacking a target whereat to aim it, became even blinder. He was like a child, being unjustly punished for some wrong which he had not committed, and which he could in no way comprehend. The thought of facing his chief with a semiannual statement made up of a series of months like these, was more than he could bear. Fortunately he was not to be called upon to do so, for Mr. Gunterson left the Guardian when the fat was all but in the fire, and another turn was given to affairs.
And the year now just closing had been a busy year for Mr. Richard Smith. During the most of it he had worked nearly twelve hours a day, and spent a liberal share of the balance in laying his plans. Now, and only now,—as the year 1913 was drawing to a close,—had he time to draw a full breath and look about him.
His Augean stable, if not wholly clean, was at least free from the more dangerous impurities. The Guardian was not yet, it was true, clear of all possibility of disaster; but the tide had been turned, and with strict care there was no further need to fear shipwreck. In Pennsylvania, in Maryland, in New York,—in short, practically everywhere save in Massachusetts, where the fight was still in the courts,—separation had received its deathblow, while robbed of this advantage the Conference companies could do little or nothing to harm the Guardian. And in justice to them it must be said that none of them apparently manifested any abnormal desire to do so, excepting always the Salamander, whose hostility increased in geometrical ratio with the Guardian's recovery of strength and prestige. Most of the agencies which had been lost under Mr. Gunterson's management were either restored to the company's lists, or else their places had been taken by others of equal or superior quality.
Out in the field the special agents had under Smith's aggressive direction recovered their courage and carried out with striking success the details of his campaign. At the few points where the company's loss record had been consistently bad, Smith either kept the Guardian out altogether or made an appointment on such a basis that the agent's profits would be small unless the company itself made money through that agency. Being free and not bound by Conference restrictions, he was able at many points to improve his company's position. And when, in the early days of the coming January, Mr. Bartels should approach his annual statement, it seemed probable that it would show little diminution in the Guardian's resources. The statement would be helped, too, by the fact that the value of some of the securities owned by the company, chiefly considerable blocks of bank and anthracite railroad stocks, had appreciated very handsomely during the year. And Mr. Cuyler, thanks to the increased conflagration line and to the large business he was securing from his new branch manager, was making a record so good that he could scarcely believe the figures which he himself had compiled.
All in all, the showing would be by no means a discreditable one. It had been a remarkable task; and Smith, now that he came to look back on it, remembering the black days of the reign of Gunterson the Unready, could himself only wonder mildly at the way all these things had come about. In the midst of the satisfaction which he could not help but feel, there was always a genuine sense of amazement at the facile way in which Fate had played into his hand. If he had any doubts, however, no one else confessed to any. Mr. Wintermuth frankly gave to his young underwriter the proper share of credit for the results that had been brought about. All this was pleasant, but it was also earned.
In these months of activity, activity unusual even for Smith, who was customarily a busy man, there had been for him only one personal diversion. This was his growing friendship with Helen Maitland; and to this relationship Smith had by this time come to turn as a lost Arab turns to a chance-discovered oasis. Through the days of Gunterson's administration he had not had heart to write Helen or even to think of her—to his darkened vision she seemed increasingly far away. But this could not last, and when the tide turned, he presently found himself writing to her almost as to another self, and found himself awaiting her letters as filling one of the most vital needs of his life. There was a name for this, but as yet he was not prepared to use it, and if Helen were prepared, certainly no hint of any such readiness showed through her diction.
Because men no longer go abroad, as in medieval times, hewing their way to glory and romance with sword and mace, it is no sure sign that the flower has fallen from romance's tree. Merely because that flower now blooms perhaps more quietly, less flamboyantly than it used to bloom in purple and gold, is no reason to think that it does not bloom at all. The singers of world songs find voice to-day, just as they always have, and no lack of all the panoply of old-time chivalry and war can make a friendship slipping into love less than a beautiful and wondrous thing. It is perhaps in some ways to be regretted that the inspiring bombast of the elder days is no longer in vogue—the grandiloquent arrogance that led a man to tie a lady's ribband to his arm and proclaim on fear of sudden death her puissance of beauty throughout the world. This is perhaps unfortunate; but through added reticence beauty really suffers no wrong.
Smith, although he had not as yet formulated his precise wishes or intentions as regards Helen, still knew that he desired a house professionally in order before he allowed himself to think of another kind of house. The Guardian was his company, and the Guardian must be placed in a haven where storms could come not, before he would feel that his charge was sufficiently relaxed to allow of his dreaming dreams.
It was with this idea that, as the old year was drawing to a close, he approached Mr. Wintermuth with a definite project in view.
"We are not going to have such a bad year, after all," he began.
"I fancy we shall come through pretty well," the President agreed."Although it didn't look much like it at the start."
"No," said Smith; "it didn't. But do you know, sir, that in one way we're not making as much of a profit as we should?"
"In what way do you mean, Richard?" inquired his chief.
"Not in the underwriting," replied the younger man. "I'm not going to suggest increasing our lines or opening up any more than we have. But I don't think it would hurt us if we opened up a little financially."
"How so? In what way?"
"Well, our investments are in high-class securities, but they're not liquid enough. We've always bought with the intention of holding what we buy forever. Now, we've got an exceptionally good finance committee; Mr. Griswold in particular is regarded as one of the strongest and shrewdest men in Wall Street."
"Yes; I know he is," Mr. Wintermuth conceded.
"And there's really no good reason why we shouldn't benefit by his judgment. Now, you know as well as any one that the money to be made out of underwriting, pure and simple, is comparatively little. You know that in the long run, even with the most ably managed companies, expenses and losses together just about eat up all the premiums received—that less than a dozen first-class companies doing a national business have an underwriting balance on the right side for the last ten-year period."
"I admit that unfortunately such is the case."
"Therefore the only chance a company has to make money is from the use of money—from the use of its premiums between the time they are received and the time they are paid out in losses. And as this is really our only chance, we ought to take every advantage—and make as much of an investment profit as we possibly can."
"I trust you do not mean to suggest that we use the Guardian's assets for purposes of speculation," Mr. Wintermuth remarked.
"Certainly not—unless it is speculating to take advantage of what foresight and knowledge of conditions our finance committee possesses. I do not suggest buying on margin or selling what we haven't got. But I do suggest that we carry more liquid assets and a bigger cash balance than we have ever done, so as to be able to take advantage of opportunities that may present themselves. Now, take our Ninth National Bank stock, for instance. The Duane Trust Company crowd are trying to buy the control, and the stock's higher than it's ever been. In my opinion the block we hold is worth more to the Duane people than it is to us; I'd let them have it."
"Why, we've had that stock for twenty years!" the President said.
"Well, we've probably had it long enough," said his subordinate, with a smile. "At least I'd like to have Mr. Griswold's opinion on the point. And you certainly will never lose much by getting out of a security at the highest price it's touched in that entire period."
"Perhaps not. I will speak to Griswold about it," said Mr. Wintermuth.
"I am not a financier, and all this is somewhat outside my province," Smith went on; "but I think we ought to follow more closely the trend of modern business methods. We hold far more than we need of solid railroad bonds that net us four per cent on our investment. With very little extra risk I am sure we can secure a good deal larger return."
It was a rather daring speech to make, for four per cent first-mortgage railroad bonds had been Mr. Wintermuth's idea of finance for almost a generation. It spoke well for his confidence in his Vice-President that he did not regard the remark as an impertinence.
"That may be true, Richard," he said mildly, "although I have held to the contrary for twenty years. Still, times change, and to-day you may be right."
"I think I am, sir," returned Smith, respectfully. "At any rate, why shouldn't the question be laid before the directors?"
"We could do that," agreed Mr. Wintermuth, with, it must be confessed, a covert feeling of relief. After all, the assimilation of new ideas is not the most painless of processes, whatever the age of the assimilator.
"There's no meeting before the January one, is there?"
"No. January fifth—dividend meeting. But that's comparatively soon.I'll lay it before the board at that time."
"Thank you, sir," said his subordinate, rising; "and I think that at least one person present will approve a little more elastic financial policy for the Guardian."
"Mr. Richard Smith?" inquired the President.
"Oh, yes. But I was thinking of Mr. Griswold."
"Well, we shall see," rejoined Mr. Wintermuth; and the conversation concluded.
The year 1914 dawned clear and cold. There had been an almost daily snowfall in New York during Christmas week; and although the street cleaning squad had labored stoutly, a little dusky whiteness still persisted in the less frequented corners of the city. This had come near to being the undoing of Mr. Jenkins, the main reliance of the Pacific Coast accounts and otherwise of considerable importance in the period of stress and toil known as "statement time."
At the beginning of every year comes this period to every company—the time when the accounts department becomes, instead of an active thorn in the company's flesh, the real, essential hub of the whole wheel; the time when the adding machines are never still and the rooms resound with the rustle and stir of a thousand sheets of figures, swung ceaselessly over by practiced and hasty thumbs; when the lights burn late every night for two weeks on end, and the laboring bookkeepers see their families only by cinematographic glances between newspaper and coffee cup in the cold gray mornings.
This time was now come; and the Guardian's men, under the silent but none the less strenuous urging of Mr. Bartels, had begun the grind which could end only when the annual statement of the company was in the printers' hands with proof initialed and approved by Otto Bartels, Secretary. And this, taken in conjunction with the cold weather and heavy snowfall, had fairly undone the honor and the reputation of Mr. Jenkins. For the unusual cold and the night work together had betrayed him into potations even beyond his wont, the slippery pavements had proven very baffling to his dignified tread—and the snowy signet upon the back of his topcoat spoke to a delighted office all too plainly that at last the alcoholic equilibrist par excellence had fallen.
This, however, embarrassing as it was to the individual in question, did not seriously delay the work of the department, which was well under way by the time the directors came together in their private office, to declare the semiannual dividend which for many years the Guardian had undeviatingly paid. A trial balance, from gross figures, had been drawn off, so that the President was able to report with reasonable exactitude on the condition of the company. The dividend was promptly declared, and this was followed by a more or less informal discussion among the gentlemen around the big table.
"The increase in our surplus seems due mostly to the rise in value of some of our securities," Mr. Whitehill commented; "but the underwriting showing is much better for the last six months than for the first. I think our friend, Mr. Smith, is to be congratulated; and at the same time I want to ask what he thinks of our prospects for the coming year."
"Well, from the underwriting viewpoint," Smith answered, "there is no reason why this year should not be better than last, and several reasons why it should; but if you will pardon the presumption of my going outside of my own department, I think our chance for an increased profit lies more along financial than insurance lines."
"Mr. Smith thinks," said Mr. Wintermuth, "that there has not been a sufficient flexibility in our investments—that we could do better with a larger cash balance and more liquid—or easily liquidated—assets."
"And so we could," said Mr. Griswold. He leaned forward with more interest than he had yet shown. "I have felt for some time," he continued, "that our management of our resources was substantial and safe, but—without wishing to reflect on our President, whose conservatism has been a tower of strength to us—I have also felt we were financially just a little old-fashioned."
"What would you suggest that we do?" inquired the President. "My mind is entirely open on the subject."
"Let me see the statement," said Mr. Griswold. He regarded it carefully through his glasses. "Well," he said, "there are several items on this, representing securities of which I advised the purchase. This Schuylkill and Susquehanna Railroad and this Ninth National Bank."
"Ninth National—that's the bank the Duane crowd is trying to buy, isn't it?" asked another director.
"Yes. It's higher now than it has been for twenty years," said Mr.Wintermuth.
"And a great sight more than it's worth," Mr. Griswold commented. "If it were mine, I'd get out at the present price. And I'd get out of Schuylkill and Susquehanna, too. I don't want to be quoted on this, you understand, but there's no reason for its selling at 160 except the expectation of an extra dividend, and in my opinion all this talk of an extra dividend is just rubbish. I believe if we sold what we have to-morrow, we could get it back within six months, if we wanted, at 135."
The gentlemen around the table were visibly impressed, as Mr. Griswold's reputation for sagacity in such matters was more than metropolitan.
"Well, I move that the Finance Committee be empowered to recommend the sale of any of our securities," said another well-intentioned director. "And that on their recommendation the securities be sold," he added somewhat lamely.
"The Finance Committee doesn't need any such resolution passed," said Mr. Griswold, with a laugh. "If I'm not greatly mistaken, it's always had such powers. But I'm glad to learn that it is now the desire of the directorate that we should use them."
It was only a few days after this that Smith, having stopped on his way home to see a Pittsburgh man who always put up at the Waldorf, met Mr. Griswold in the lobby of that hotel.
"Well, our Ninth National stock is sold," remarked that gentleman, casually. "Four ninety-two."
"Good!" said the underwriter. "I think we're well out."
"So do I," returned the other. "By the way, did you notice the market to-day?"
"No."
"Closed weak. Schuylkill and Susquehanna off two points and a half."
"Too bad we didn't get out of that, too," said Smith. "I remember you said it was too high."
"It still is," returned the financier, dryly. "But we got out. We sold every share we had, at the opening, this morning."
Smith looked at him.
"You mean—?" he asked.
"I mean that a good big cash balance is often a handy thing to have. And just now I'd rather have cash than stocks. I don't mean there's going to be a panic, or anything like that, but everything's very high. They may go some higher, but they'll certainly go a good deal lower. And I don't think that we'll have to wait very long. Good-night—glad to have seen you."
"Good-night," replied Smith, thoughtfully.
In the Deerfield Street apartment a young man stood waiting with perhaps less calm than was strictly Oriental. This could no doubt be attributed to the fact that he anticipated with distinct pleasure the coming of somebody, while a true Oriental never really anticipates anything—or if he does, the thought gives him no delight.
But Smith, as he sat in the straight-backed chair, felt very glad indeed that he was about to see the somebody for whom he was waiting. The time which had elapsed since his most recent trip to Boston had somehow gone with unconscionable slowness, and the medium of the mails had proved an alternative means of communication only measurably compensating. He had, in short, discovered that a great deal of his life was concerned with the girl whose footsteps were now to be heard advancing down the hall.
"I'm awfully glad to see you," said Miss Maitland.
"And I you," returned the visitor; and if the words carried only the conventionalities, each found a way to make them more significant.
"Mother will be in to welcome you," the girl continued. "It's a compliment she doesn't pay everyone," she added, with a smile. "She doesn't care, as a rule, for young gentlemen visitors. By the way, we have plenty of time, have we not, before we need to start?"
"Fully twenty minutes," he answered. "I guess I'm absurdly early, but I thought I ought to give the young lady an opportunity to get acquainted with me before starting out alone with me in a taxi."
"Are we ever acquainted with any one?" the girl parried; and a moment later the conversation shifted to meet the entrance of Mrs. Maitland.
Shortly before eight o'clock they set forth for the theater. It was the evening of the twenty-first of February, and the following day, Sunday, was also a holiday in memory of a great man. It was of him that they chanced to speak, almost on entering their conveyance.
"I'm glad to-morrow is a holiday," said Smith. "After a party on the previous night it is always soothing to think one isn't obliged to get up at any particular hour in the morning. But I don't suppose that point of view would appeal to you."
"No," said his companion, with a laugh. "I much prefer having something particular to get up for. But as I seldom have, I presume that's merely another way of saying that every one wants what one hasn't got. I fancy if I had to appear punctually at breakfast every morning, I'd appreciate holidays a great deal more than I do now."
"I used to think we had too many. That was because it tears things up so abominably in an insurance office to get two or three days' work slammed at you at once. But I'm reconciled now. And if we celebrate for any one, we certainly ought to do so for George."
"Seriously speaking, why?" Helen asked. "Probably I should be ashamed of myself, but I've never been able to get up as much enthusiasm for him as I feel I should. Can you tell me any way of doing so?"
"I can tell you how I came to, at all events," said her companion. "The story may not be so romantic, but it made more of a hit with me than the account of the same heroic gentleman nearly freezing to death at Valley Forge, or standing up in a boat while he crossed the Delaware, which is a silly thing to do, even for a hero. Nothing of that sort. But somewhere—I forget just where—I ran across the account of a little episode which showed me that the General was a man of real ability, after all."
"What was it?" asked the girl, with interest.
"Well, it seems that some earnest society of antiquaries had been digging up the back yards of Rhode Island and making idiots of themselves generally in an effort to prove that the Vikings came to America."
"But they did come, didn't they?" Helen interrupted.
"Of course they did; but it wasn't known in Washington's time. However, somebody with a vein of enterprise or malice had salted a Viking mine, so to speak, and under the auspices—and the pay—of the society had contrived to exhume a stone tablet on which were some extremely apropos inscriptions, proving exactly what the amiable old gentlemen desired to prove."
"About the Vikings?"
"Yes. Well, the discovery of this tablet made a deep impression. The society held meetings and passed resolutions and went through all kinds of ponderous and absurd conventionalities, culminating in asking General Washington—at that time I don't believe he was President—to make a speech. He came over from Boston, and they showed him the tablet. And after he had looked it carefully over, he casually called their attention to the fact that the inscription, which was supposed to have been cut in the eleventh century, contained script characters which appeared in no northern alphabet prior to the sixteen hundreds. And what is more, when they looked it up, they found that he was right."
"That is really very interesting," Helen said.
"It gave me a respect for him that I'd never had before, anyway," rejoined Smith. "Think of the old General knowing anything at all about Icelandic sagas—and the offhand way he picked out the anachronism and smashed it in the eye. No—so far as I am concerned, he is entitled to his holiday. Long may it wave—especially as I hope to see you, if you'll let me, while if it were an ordinary business day I should probably have to devote myself to certain distinguished legal gentlemen."
"How is the lawsuit progressing?" asked the girl.
Smith surveyed her doubtfully.
"Have you seen Mr. Osgood recently?" he inquired suspiciously. "One time, you remember, you made me tell a long story all of which you knew perfectly well before I began."
"No—honestly," Helen laughingly denied. "I have hardly seen Uncle Silas for two or three weeks, and the last time we met, he said nothing about it."
"Well, then, in confidence it is my hope and belief that unless our present expectations fall through with a sickening thud, another month or two will see the Guardian and your uncle back in the office that neither of them should ever have left."
"Not really!" said the girl, delighted.
"I have no longer any real doubt of it," Smith said seriously. "It can hardly fail now. I don't mind saying to you that it's about time, too. The Conference has made a good fight; but they were beaten from the start, and they know it now. And I'll be very glad to see some Boston business coming in to us again, I can assure you."
"Haven't you been getting any this last year?"
"Only a little, principally suburban business through a small agent named George Greenwood. Of course we got a lot through Sternberg, Bloom, and McCoy, but it was so bad that I canceled nearly every policy they wrote for us. All the Guardian has left in the down-town district is some building business—a few lines written by the Osgood office for three or five years, and which haven't expired yet. And there aren't many of them, for Cole switched some into the Salamander, and besides, we always tried to keep our congested district business on an annual basis. If Boston burned to-morrow, I don't believe the Guardian would lose more than a hundred thousand dollars."
"That sounds to me like quite a loss."
"So it is, but it's only a small fraction of what most companies have at risk here. I'm really not sure but that a year ago we didn't have more than we should. I certainly know a lot of companies that would sit up and take notice with a vengeance if a big fire ever did occur."
"Do you think one likely?" asked Helen. "It makes one shudder just a little to think of it."
"No—probably not. Still, there's really no reason why one shouldn't happen here as well as elsewhere. And big fires are certain to happen somewhere. The city's improving right along, but it's still got its possibilities."
"Yes," said the girl. "For now that I come to think of it, I remember that the conflagration hazard in the congested district is not a thing one can precisely calculate, but it would be difficult to overestimate its gravity. Isn't that so?"
Smith looked at her, turning in the taxi to do so. By the flash of a street lamp that they were passing he could see she was smiling whimsically.
"Where did you get that?" he demanded.
"Don't you recall?" she rejoined. "Whether it's greatly to his credit or not, I can't judge, but certainly he himself hath said it."
"That's true," her companion admitted, with a laugh. "I remember now.But how in the world did you happen to?"
"Should an humble apprentice—an ignorant pupil—forget the first pearl of wisdom that fell from the master's lips? It was the first speech of Mr. Richard Smith that I ever heard repeated—the first time I ever heard his name mentioned."
"If I'd had any idea it would have lived so long, I certainly would have tried to say something more eloquent," the other returned. "However, I still stand by the sentiment. And incidentally, I don't mind saying that if Boston is going to burn, I hope it does so inside of the next two or three months—before Mr. Osgood puts the Guardian back with a half a million dollars' liability scattered about down town."
"Don't talk of so terrible a possibility as the burning of Boston," said the girl. "There has been one very great fire here. Surely there will never be another."
"Surely not," agreed Smith. "At least for the sake of your fellow citizens and my fellow underwriters I cordially hope not. But here we are, apparently."
The taxi was coming to a stop across the street from the Aquitaine, and in front of the theater where already a crowd was congregating. The avenue between the theater itself and the Common was filled with cabs and motor cars moving spasmodically about under the autocracy of a large mounted policeman whose voice easily defied the whirring motors. In the raw northeast wind there was the unpleasant smell and oily smoke of burnt-out gasolene.
Smith and Helen, disembarking at the curb, managed to avoid the worst of the mêlée; and presently, when their coats were checked and out of the way, they reached their seats just as Christopher Sly began his opening speech. The prologue soon played itself through, and the house, now completely filled, burst audibly into speech, as though a long departed sense had been suddenly and miraculously restored. From all sides the swelling tide surged forth, and Helen listened for a moment before she herself spoke.
"You would certainly suppose that no one of them had been allowed to speak for the last five years, wouldn't you?" she asked.
"Oh, well," Smith answered, "perhaps every one of them has some one he's as glad to talk to as I am to you. Although, come to think of it, I hear several voices not possessed by my sex, and I don't know but that I would really rather listen to you."
"But you won't have the opportunity," the girl rejoined. "No, this is your party, and you must be as agreeable and entertaining as you possibly can. You may begin by telling me all about the actors to-night. Why does the star choose to play such a part as old Sly? It surely isn't the star part, is it?"
"It is the tradition—or years ago it used to be. Very few actors do it now; in fact, this is the first time I've seen the star play it for years. It's well done, too, and I haven't seen it well done since old George Clark had his last curtain. This man is a good man."
"He is indeed. I noticed in theTranscripthe was English. Is she his wife? I gathered that she was."
"Yes. They've been playing together in London for several years now, and this is their first trip to America. I fancy that he is the real brains and ability of the combination, and her reputation seems mainly to rest on adding obedience and decorative embellishment to his effects. And she certainly is decorative, don't you think?"
"Yes—in a certain way. Tell me—do they always play Shakespeare? I was in London two years ago, but I don't recall hearing anything about them at that time. I should think I would if they'd been there."
"That's odd. I should surely have thought you'd have heard of them.They've been well known over there for some years. I suppose, though,they play the provinces, like every one else. No, they don't playShakespeare all the time, by any means; they couldn't do it and live."
"You mean that they couldn't get audiences? Why, some actors do. Mantell, for instance—and Sothern and Marlowe. They seem to go on year after year, and they must be at least moderately successful, or they wouldn't keep it up."
"Mantell ought to; he is a real actor—of the traditional school, of course—but great, all the same. It has always seemed to me that his Lear was one of the fine performances of the stage to-day. But even Mantell has to travel halfway across the country every season; he couldn't stay in New York—no, nor in intellectual and appreciative Boston, either. And I doubt whether a man would fare much better trying to play nothing but Shakespeare in London. No, this man can play virtually anything; he made his first big hit—in recent years, that is—playing Maldonado in Pinero's 'Iris.'"
"But go back to Sothern and Marlowe. They go on Shakespearing, world without end."
"If you can call it Shakespeare. I have never been able to see much in their way of doing it. Marlowe does some things well, but I confess that to see her now as Juliet is too great a strain on me. As for Sothern, he's a good romantic actor, but not a Shakespearean one."
"They play this—-'The Taming of the Shrew'—do they not? It seems to me they were here last spring."
"Quite likely. I think they try. One wet and miserable night I went to see. But remembering, as I did, the immortal Katherine of Rehan and the hardly less magnificent Petruchio of Skinner, I never should have gone. There was only one redeeming feature."
"What was that?"
"When the scene comes, watch how this man carries Katherine off. That's one great test. See if he backs her up onto a bench; see if he guides her premeditated fall to the precise center of equilibrium of his shoulders; see if he staggers painfully off with his knees tottering, almost flapping beneath him. By heavens, I have seen Skinner abduct a one hundred and sixty pound Katherine with as little effort as if she had been a wicker basket full of eggshells!"
"Is this dramatic criticism?" asked Helen, maliciously.
"Perhaps not of the academic brand," admitted Smith, laughingly; "but I believe it's good sound criticism just the same. If a man is going to play the swashbuckler, I like to see him able to swash his buckle. But seriously, I shouldn't have objected to that one bad piece of business if it hadn't seemed to me that the whole performance was out of key and wrong. But here's the curtain going up."
The curtain rose on Signor Baptista's house, and for the next half hour farce comedy supreme held the audience in its grasp.
"Katherine is very good, don't you think?" queried Helen, when once more the inane wanderings of the orchestra began to compete with the conversation.
"Very good indeed; I like her rages."
"I have always been sorry that I never saw Ada Rehan; every one who ever saw her says just as you do that no one could equal her."
"I'm sure no one could. I have seen her sit with her hands in her lap and tears—genuine tears—streaming down her cheeks for very rage when Petruchio harries her in this act. Heavens! but she was in a fine fury! Do you know that the only objection I ever had to this play was that I grew sorry for Katherine—sorry to see her proud neck bent to any yoke, so to speak."
"She is made finally to like it, though."
"Yes; she is—in the play. But I never could more than half believe that she actually liked it, for all that. Oh, I've no doubt it's wrong to prefer ungoverned wrath to sane and controlled sobriety; but she was so magnificent in her savagery that it seemed a shame she had to be tamed at all. Like the lions and the other animals that they train to jump through hoops, you miss something, you know; some splendid essence has evaporated, and I for one am sorry to watch it go."
"They tell me," said the girl, demurely, "that under the proper conditions and auspices young ladies are secretly glad to be subjugated."
"I suppose they have it naturally—cradle of the race, and all that sort of thing. Just the same, I still continue to prefer Katherine in her first state."
"You speak of her as though she were an etching."
"She suggests one, in that gown she wore in the last act—or would, except for the color."
"From that rather supercilious remark I should gather that you do not admire colored etchings."
"Hybrid affairs, don't you think?"
But before this subject could be pursued, the play once more resumed the center of the stage.
It is the immortal prototype of farce comedy, this play of the "Taming of the Shrew." In the hands of a lesser author it would have lost its comedy and degenerated purely into farce, restricting itself to more ignoble aims and to a more indulgent public. For farce, after all, is farcical, and the mood for its appreciation is not one which is sympathetic to any great or moving thing. And in the hands of interpreters less than intelligently fine, the play may still descend into the lower class; but this cannot be done without degrading it beyond any likeness to its real self.
Played rightly, however, Petruchio becomes not a brawler, not a kind of damn-my-eyes bully and braggart, but a practical idealist, a man who, happening by chance upon a creature of stupendous undirected power, sets himself to the direction of that power toward nature's, if not humanity's, ends. At the first he cares nothing for Katherine save that the rumor of her fire and spirit has pleased his wild fancy. And never is there the faintest hint of the sentimentalist about him; his is never the softness of the lover, but rather the careful prudence of the utilitarian. Yet he unstintedly admires Katherine; this is somehow felt to be so by his rather pompous implication that he would hardly be taking all this trouble about the woman were she not the makings of a royal mate, fit even for his sky-wide vision and heart and humor.
Perhaps in Elizabethan days most of this was lost; possibly during the author's own life the play assumed rather the wild gayety and license of a farce, and all the comedy had to wait in abeyance for the years to bring it into its own. Undoubtedly very few, if any, of the auditors of Shakespeare's time felt the compunction to which Smith confessed when the pride of a proud woman was seen dragged at a man's chariot wheel. What the women of those days thought about it is not so certain, but probably it was pretty much what they think to-day. Certainly Helen's expressed view was in approximate accordance with the presumably unexpressed opinion of Elizabethan ladies; and to this, in the intermission before the last act, Smith called her attention.
"Do you realize that your belief that Katherine was pleased at being conquered is not at all modern?—it's absolutely medieval."
"Well, we are all medieval—quite largely—are we not?"
"Possibly—in spots. When the girl of to-day is not overpoweringly advanced, perhaps she is quite far behind. But I should hardly have expected so distinctly a medieval opinion from you."
"Heavens! why not? I sound horribly Bostonian. Am I so hopelessly advanced that you can credit me with no human sentiments at all?"
"Well, that," said Smith, "was scarcely my thought."
"It sounded very much like it. However, I'm glad if I were mistaken."
"You know very well," said her companion, in a lower voice, "what I think of you. I think—"
"Oh, but I don't—really," Helen quickly parried. This was getting hazardous; the conversation must be switched at once. "No matter what you think of me, you are almost sure to be quite mistaken. But some things I am willing to confess. And one of them, which may be very primitive, is this—that just because I myself am not a wild, tigress-like creature is no indication that I cannot realize how she would feel. Is it, now?"
Smith said nothing for a long moment.
"I'm very glad that you feel that way about it," he said at last, rather to himself, however, than to her. And for the rest of the intermission he hardly spoke.
It was by this time about half-past ten. Here and there in the house a vacated seat showed that some hopeless and inveterate commuter had felt the call of his homeward street car or train. Never in Boston can an entire audience remain to the close of an entertainment; the lure of the thronging, all-pervading suburb is too strong. Helen, idly watching the exodus of these prudent or sleepy citizens, heard outside what might have been the warning bell that called them forth. She directed Smith's attention to the coincidence.
"They have to go home, you know; and that sounds like the signal they obey."
"It sounds to me like a fire engine," said her companion.
But further speculation was cut short by the sight of "A Road," where presently was to be seen the old man who was so oddly mistook for a "young, budding virgin," and on which soon beat the doubtful rays of the "blessed sun"—or moon, as the case might be. The intermission between the last two scenes of the act was a brief one only—the mere moment required for the rising of a scene curtain upon the banquet hall of Katherine's father. But during that little interval, two things came to Smith's notice; the first being the sound of vague noises in the outside world, and the second the peculiar behavior of a man in evening clothes at the extreme side of the stage aperture.
The seats which the two occupied were in the lower rows of the parquet, close under the right-hand stage box; and from where they sat it was thus possible to look into the wings on the opposite side of the stage. It was in the little opening between the proscenium and the curtain that the man in evening dress unexpectedly appeared. His appearance caught Smith's eye, and he watched curiously to see what was to follow. In his hand this person held a watch at which he glanced hastily, and then made two steps to come before the footlights. But just as he was nearly clear of the scenes, some one out of sight in the wing evidently summoned him, for he stopped short, and then turned back. After a brief colloquy, in which the watch was again consulted, he retired, and a moment later the curtain went up.
It seemed to Smith, watching closely, his curiosity aroused by this half-seen and wholly uncomprehended episode, that the actors in the last act were playing under the pressure of an odd excitement, a sort of suppressed anxiety and haste. It seemed to him they hurried through their lines, and the messengers to the brides came back with an electric promptness more to be desired in real life than in the circumstances of the play.
Finally the whole was done—all except Katherine's final address to the ladies, and this took but a brief moment. Smith, listening tensely to sounds from without, turned and spoke to Helen; and as the curtain fell they started quickly up the aisle. Their seats chanced to be open to the side aisle of the house, and a moment later Smith was handing his check to the cloakroom attendant, with a "Hurry up, please"—and a lubricant to celerity.
The applause was still to be heard in the theater, but after one brief bow the actors appeared no more, and the house began to empty. By this time Smith had reclaimed the wraps, and he and Helen, ready for the open air, moved out through the lobby and onto the sidewalk in front of the theater.
On the sidewalk there was a curious tone of constrained excitement. Evidently something much out of the ordinary had happened—or was happening. People stood in groups, staring northward up Tremont Street; and almost all the passers-by, as though impelled by a nameless, inexplicable force that could not be controlled, were hurrying in the same direction. An ambulance with clattering gong dashed by. The urgent crowds, pouring out of the big theater, were pressing Smith and Helen toward the curb.
"Come on," said the New Yorker, "something's up; let's get out of this." He took the girl's arm, and they crossed Boylston Street and made their stand on the opposite, less crowded walk that edged the Common.
On the sidewalk about them knots of people were eagerly talking, all looking northward as though drawn by the same magnetic force. And as Smith and his companion raised their eyes, they saw in the northern sky an ugly crimson glare that seemed to widen and grow brighter even in the moment as they watched it. From far up Tremont Street, carried by the wind, came an odd murmur of confused noises, and nearer by the sharper sounds of clanging bells and the clatter of galloping horses' feet on the pavement. The crowds were hurrying up the walk, and out in the street, where it was less crowded, men were running in the same direction. The trolley cars seemed to have been blocked; none were coming from the north.
"Great Scott! That must be something terrific!" Smith said, and he felt the beat of his heart perceptibly quicken.
But before he had time to make any further remark, from directly behind them came with the electric unexpectedness of a sharp thunder clap one loud cry, compelling, exigent, almost barbaric.
"Fire!" it said. "Fire!"
In the eastern sky abode only the pale gold reflection of the city's lights. To the westward, across the Common, the soft blackness under the stars descended even to the treetops. But the attention of Smith and Helen, gazing north on Tremont Street, was fixed on the unsteady glow of threatening, reddish light thrown up against the absorbing fabric of the air.
"Good heavens! Just look at that!" Smith said, pointing.
"It must be a very bad fire—don't you think so?" inquired the girl.
"It looks from here like a corker. It's certainly bad enough to make it well worth seeing," he returned. "Do you want to telephone your mother that you're going?"
"Are we going, then?" asked Helen.
"To the fire?" demanded her companion. "Of course we are going. Fires are my business, besides being the greatest spectacles in the world. Let's go over to the Aquitaine, and we'll telephone."
A few minutes later they came out again; Smith motioned to the driver of a taxi.
"Get in," he said to Helen. "You shall ride to the fire like a lady, in a cab."
As he spoke he noted how the wind was blowing the girl's hair about her face, and for just an instant he gave that vision its individual due.
"Take us as near the fire as you can get," he directed the chauffeur.
From Boylston Street up Tremont to its intersection with Beacon is a ride of barely two minutes. It seemed as though almost no time had elapsed before the taxi came to a stop beside the Palmer House. The two occupants descended; Smith paid the man; the vehicle slid off into space beyond their ken. And at that very moment their eyes sprang to where, barely a block away, great tongues of red fire licked above a wide building's roof—and all else but that thing faded into nothing.
"This way," said the New Yorker, tersely. They crossed School Street, continuing up Tremont until they were opposite the old King's Chapel Burial Ground. From this point, over the top of the City Hall, they could see the flames riding high in air above a big five- and seven-story building.
"My God! That must be Black's Hotel!" said a voice in the crowd behind them.
"Sure, that's what it is," volunteered a policeman who was keeping the fire lines.
"Were any lives lost?" Smith asked.
"No. Every one got out all right. It didn't start in the hotel. They're very careful, and they have a fine fire drill, anyway. There was plenty of time to warn every one."
Out of the north came a crisp wind. Not content with blowing, as it had done before, Helen's hair about her ears, it also whipped her skirts urgently about her. Smith calculated this wind, and shook his head dubiously.
"Twenty-five miles an hour, I should think," he said. "Rather bad night for a big fire. I wonder if we can get a little closer."
From where they stood it seemed that the fire was in the heart of the block bounded by Court Square, Court, School, and Washington Streets. The north half of this block was occupied chiefly by Black's Hotel, one of the best-known hostelries in New England, and the south half by the newspaper plant of the BostonNewsand by several smaller buildings. Between the two sections of the block ran a narrow lane known as Williams Court; and at the time when Smith and Helen became spectators, the fire was pouring from every window of the big hotel and proving triumphant over all efforts to keep it from leaping the almost imperceptible southern barrier.
"How long has this been going?" Smith asked the policeman.
"About an hour and a half, I guess. I've been here since quarter to ten."
"Do you suppose we could go through the lines?" Smith inquired. "I've got a New York fire badge."
"All right for you, sir—I'll pass you on it—but not for the lady."
This did not admit of an argument.
"Now, aren't you sorry you brought me?" asked the girl.
"Well, no," said her companion. "Hardly—yet. Let's try a little strategy."
In front of them School Street was filled with wild turmoil. Here were hose carts and gray, snaky hose lines stretching along the pavement in weird, curves and spurting tiny streams from imperfect couplings; here were firemen rushing excitedly back and forth, hoarsely calling orders which no one seemed to hear. Along the curb were chemicals, hook and ladders, patrols, all of them now stripped of their apparatus; while at every corner beside a hydrant, each one chugging steadily away like the regular, vibrant pulse from some giant heart, were the fire engines. Out of their funnels poured a steady flare of cinders and smoke; on the pavement beneath them the embers lay crimson; and the scarlet flashes, whenever the fire doors were opened, showed the glowing furnaces within.
Retracing their steps toward Tremont Street, Smith and Helen skirted the Tremont Temple, then east along Bosworth until they came to Province Street. Up this narrow passage, which passes as such only by a courtesy peculiarly Bostonian, they went, finding themselves presently back almost where they had started, but at a point of vantage whence they could see the western face of the fire, which was now beginning to threaten hungrily westward toward the stout old stone walls of the City Hall.
And now the building of the BostonNews, although protected by a system of automatic sprinklers, was thoroughly ablaze, as was the Miles Block immediately fronting City Hall Avenue. It was from this last building that the City Hall stood in jeopardy.
In Province Street, protected from the surge of activities beyond, the onlookers could watch most of the fight to save the old building. And a gallant fight it was, for the space between the fire and the coping of the old stone structure's eastern wall was a scant thirty feet. Fortunately, however, the wind was blowing almost directly from the north, and this gave the firemen a chance. From the movements of the department and the snatches of orders which could occasionally be heard, Smith gathered that a similar struggle was going on in at least three directions from the blazing block. To west, to south, and to east the flames were leaning, and the narrow streets made the task of holding them additionally hazardous.
Meanwhile the heat, even in Province Street, had become intense. Together with the other onlookers, Smith and Helen found it necessary to take refuge in the doorways and behind an angle of a building which projected slightly beyond the rest of the row, from which point they looked forth in turn, shading their faces and eyes with their hands. All at once, looking upward, they saw a cloud of smoke suddenly replace the glare directly north. The next moment a dull sound from the Miles Block was heard, and Smith saw its western cornice sway.
"We'd better get out of this, quick," he said. "A wall fell then—the west wall of that building there. That ought to save the City Hall, if they handle it right; but it'll make this alley too hot to hold us. Come on!"
Side by side the two hurried back with the crowd along the narrow way. Their departure was taken none too soon. Behind them they could feel a wave of heat radiated from the ruins of the burning structure; it forced its way even through the little street down which they were retreating, and they could feel the hot blast upon their backs.
"Something more must have fallen then," said Smith; but he did not turn his head. Instead he took the girl's arm with a firmer grip, and they continued swiftly on their way until they came safely into Bromfield Street and out of the pursuing wave of heat.
"Let's cross over to Washington," Smith said.
On Washington Street, at first, little could be distinguished, and the police were none too gently forcing the crowds even farther back. But a block to the north, at School Street, which only a moment before these two had just quitted, there was to be seen a wild confusion. Fire engines were here, too, chugging at every hydrant, and the passage was fairly clogged with hose and apparatus of all sorts, with nervous horses, and shouting, swearing, excited men. As Smith looked closer he saw that the firemen were no longer entering School Street to the west from Washington; they were being driven back instead. And a moment later he saw also a lieutenant raise his arm in a signal.
"There comes an ambulance," he said gravely,
"What is it? What do you suppose has happened?" Helen anxiously asked.
"Fireman hurt, undoubtedly. Unless I miss my guess, somebody was caught when that wall fell. That must have been what caused the wave that chased us down that alley. See!—they're bringing them out!"
Three times the stretcher moved back and forth across WashingtonStreet. At last the ambulance drove away.
"All it could carry," commented Smith, grimly.
It was now evident that the department was being forced out of School Street. The wall which had fallen had entirely blocked the narrow passage, and the heat from the blazing ruin was so intense that no man could even obliquely face it. It was also clear that a hard struggle would be necessary to prevent the fire from leaping eastward across Washington Street.
Northward along the street from behind them, clanging its gong with insistence, came now a chief's wagon, its black horses plunging forward, open of nostril, reckless of all. Standing erect in his place, this man took an instant survey of the situation, and then began shouting orders to his subordinates in a way that seemed somehow to make itself felt above the uproar.
"He must have come around from the other side," said Smith. "Now he's taking charge in front."
However so, the effect of his instructions could be noted almost at once. Several of the engines withdrew into Milk Street; others moved northward along Washington; still others southward, but all away from the now threatened point, which was the southwest corner of Washington and School Streets. It was plain that all efforts were to be directed toward preventing the fire from jumping east of this, and it was with this purpose that the street was being cleared—the decks cleared for action. And well might they be, for on the eastern corners, directly across from this point of highest hazard, were two buildings, each an object of peculiar interest and even reverence to Bostonians. One of these was the Old South Church; the other the home of the BostonTranscript—palladia both.
"Clear the street—get those people out of the way," came the abrupt order, and Smith and Helen found themselves hastily retreating toward Tremont Street, where for a few moments at least they might hope to be undisturbed.
Not so. Tremont Street was now all that Washington had been a few minutes before; and with a tremendous crowd of onlookers the two found themselves steadily forced back and out into the Common. In the space before Tremont Temple the fire fighters seemed thick as bees, and from their manner Smith knew that they were dealing with a situation very close at hand.
"I bet anything that the Palmer House has caught," he said to Helen.
"You're dead right, Bill," called a voice in answer. "The whole SchoolStreet front's going. This is afire, that's what it is—take itfrom me." The voice trailed off into the whirlpool of sounds, butSmith had heard all that he needed to know.
"This is more than a fire," he said gravely, his lips close to the girl's ear. "It is a conflagration. With a thirty-mile wind like this, blowing right into the heart of the city, no one can tell where it will stop. We had better go home."
"Go home! Why, what time is it?" asked his companion in surprise."We've only just gotten here!"
"We have been here," said Smith, consulting his watch, "just about an hour and a half. It is now twenty minutes to one."
"Twenty minutes to one?" exclaimed Helen. "My mother will certainly think we're lost. But I hate to go. It is magnificent, even if it is terrible."
"Yes," said the other. "Just the same, Deerfield Street is the best place for you. I wonder if there's a cab in sight."
As it developed, there was none.
"Let us try the subway, then," the New Yorker went on. "Perhaps the cars are still running in there."
It was a silent couple that made its belated way home to Deerfield Street. Helen's eyes were bright with excitement and her face was flushed; but Smith was almost too preoccupied to notice the added brilliance which this gave to the girl's beauty. He parted from her at the door of the Maitlands' apartment.
"You had better go to sleep as soon as you can," he said. "Try to forget all about this business. To-morrow afternoon, when it's over, I'll come around, if I may, and tell you all I know about it."
"I shall be home to-morrow afternoon," the girl replied. "But what are you going to do now?"
"Oh, I expect I shall go back to the fire for a while," he said carelessly; "but I don't intend to stay up all night. Don't worry. I'll see you to-morrow about four—or earlier, if there's anything of importance to tell you. Good-night."
The door closed on him.
Meanwhile, furiously driven by the wind out of the north, the fire had taken a giant's dimensions for its own. Shortly after one o'clock the entire block between Tremont and Washington, School and Bromfield was one vast seething furnace from whose throat the fire burst now southward and upward with a roar. The wind was bringing its element of peril to add to the conflagration's own; it caught the white heat from the blazing mass of buildings and started it sweeping southward in a devastating wave of superheated fluid air.
As the man on the Common had said, this was a fire—but rather was it Fire, the essence of the god, the very burning breath of Loki. The city was in the hand of something greater than chance and more sinister than circumstance.
But the firemen did not realize this. When Smith found himself once more approaching the northern end of the Common, he could see that the fire had changed its humor. It was no longer a gambler, dicing with the fire fighters to determine whether it should live or die; it had taken on surety and become a tyrant, an absolute dictator, a juggernaut—and it would not pause now till all its grim play was played, or its humor changed, or some breath mightier than its own should quell it. But the firemen did not see this.
They were working like madmen now, facing a thousand hazards, unseeing yet noticing all, undirected save by words which they could hardly hear and even more hardly comprehend. There was not, however, even for their stout hearts, any longer the faintest hope of meeting their enemy face to face. The heated blast, borne on the wind's wings, entirely prevented that. All that the department could endeavor now to do was to restrict the conflagration's lateral spread, to keep the daemon in the track he had chosen, and not allow him to stray to east or west. But they reckoned without his whimsy.
There was a stray puff of wind to westward; there was a sudden cry of men mortally hurt, of horses suddenly tortured. Out from the windows of the Phipps Building a flood of flame sprang west; expelled from the tottering structure by some inward impulse, perhaps by an explosion of smothered air, this sheet of heat and flame, of unburned and burning gases, leaped Tremont Street as a rabbit leaps a ditch. Simultaneously the Tremont Street face of the old Park Street Church burst into flame, and along the rear of the buildings which fringed the ancient burial ground the fire crept. Under the eaves of these buildings it ran, and a moment later the line of brick structures on Park Street was briskly ablaze, and once more the fire fighters' flank had been turned.
Quickly this westward adventure proceeded. So unexpected had been this attack that it was some time before the department could adjust its front. Tremont Street, moreover, which was now untenable, held much apparatus, and most of this was burned where it stood. Straight up the slope toward Beacon Street and toward the gold dome of the State House the fire errantly went. Blank walls between buildings seemed to make little difference to it; what it could not pierce it ran around. Only at the extreme end of the burial ground did it pause. Here a seven-story fireproof building confronted it, and proved equal to the task. Against the solid walls of this barrier the impetuous visitor beat in vain, and then, just as suddenly as he had begun his foray, he subsided. The final sputter of his dying, under the hose streams of his foes, sounded for all the world like a chuckle. It was as if this wandering creature had signified that he had accomplished his purpose in giving the department a good scare, and that he might as well stop. The firemen stood for a moment to catch breath, gazing on the havoc wrought by this wild half hour; then, coiling up their hose, they went to await new orders.
It was now almost two o'clock. The fire had been burning for four hours; it had completely destroyed two entire city squares and part of a third, and its course was manifestly just begun. To the north and west it had strayed as far as it was to go, for the north wind made it impossible for it to spread farther in that direction, and its westward swing, as has just been seen, had been checked. The unrestrained main line of the conflagration was therefore almost due south, following the direction of the wind's impulsion, but also it tended toward the east, since all great fires strive, fanlike, to open out. This tendency on the west the Common effectually vitiated, and the firemen's plan of campaign was proportionately simplified.