ed at the wild speed with which we raced
in, grabbed the guns, threw the money on the counter, and dashed out.

We must have looked like something out of a gangster movie as we raced
back to Stoddard's place.

I was doing the driving, and Stoddard had clambered in beside me, both
rifles, and several cartridge packages in his hands. He was rocking back
and forth in mad impatience, as if by rocking he could increase our
speed. The expression on his face was positively bloodthirsty.

And then we heard the sirens behind us. Shrill, coming up like comet
wails in spite of our own speed.

"Oh, God!" Stoddard groaned. "Police!"

I squinted up into my rear vision mirror. We were less than two blocks
from the Stoddard house, now, and the thought of being overhauled by
police at the juncture was sickening, unbearable even to contemplate.

And then I saw the reason for the sirens. Saw them in the rear vision
mirror. Two fire engines, one a hook and ladder outfit, the other a hose
truck!

"It's all right," I yelped. "It's only two fire trucks!"

"Thank God!" Stoddard gasped.

We were a block from his place now, with only one corner left to turn
before we'd see the mad architectural monstrosity he called him home;
before we'd see the crazy belfry which held the salvation of the world
in its screwballish, queer-angled lines.

And then the fire trucks and the sirens were nearer and louder, less
than a block behind us. At that instant we turned the corner and came
into full view of the Stoddard place.

It was a mass of flames, utterly, roaringly ablaze!

[Illustration: It was tragedy! The house was in flames; the rats would
escape....]

I almost drove us off the street and into a tree. And by the time I'd
gotten a grip on myself, we were just a few houses away from the blazing
inferno of Stoddard's crazy quilt dwelling.

I stopped by the curb, and clambered out of the car onto knees which
would scarcely support me. My stomach was turning over and over in an
apparently endless series of nauseating somersaults.

Stoddard, white-faced, frozen, stood there beside me, clutching the guns
and the cartridge boxes foolishly in his hands.

Then someone was running up to us. Running and crying sobbingly,
breathlessly. It was Stoddard's wife.

The fire trucks screeched to a stop before the blazing building at that
instant, and her first words were drowned in the noise they made.

"... just drying out some clothes, George," she