ng "false
alarm" or "all out now."

The party had come up quite close; they could smell the burning wood and
could see the roofs of the nearer houses beginning to stand out sharp
and black against the red glow beyond. It was a barn behind a huge frame
house that was afire, the dry hay burning like powder, and by the time
they reached it the flames were already dwindling. The hose was lying
like a python all about the streets, while upon the neighbouring roofs
were groups of firemen with helmets and axes; some were shouting into
the street below, and others were holding the spouting nozzles of the
hose. "Ah," exclaimed an old man, standing near to Ida and Vandover,
"ah, _I_ was here when it first broke out; you ought to have seen the
flames then! Look, there's a tree catching!"

The crowd became denser; policemen pushed it back and stretched a rope
across the street. There was a world of tumbling yellow smoke that made
one's eyes smart, and a great crackling and snapping of flames. Terribly
excited little boys were about everywhere whistling and calling for each
other as the crowd separated them.

They watched the fire for some time, standing on a pile of boards in
front of a half-built house, but as it dwindled they wearied of it.

"Want to go?" asked Vandover at last.

"Yes," answered Ida, "we might as well. Oh, where's Bessie and Ellis?"
They were nowhere to be seen. Vandover whistled and Ida even called, but
in vain. The little boys in the crowd mimicked Ida, crying back, "Hey!
Bessie! Oh, _Bes-see_, mommer wants you!" The men who stood near laughed
at this, but it annoyed Vandover much more than it did Ida.

"Ah, well, never mind," she said at length. "Let them go. Now shall _we_
go?"

It was too late for the theatre, but to return home was out of the
question. They started off aimlessly downtown.

While he talked Vandover was perplexed. Ida was gayly dressed and was
one of those girls who cannot open their mouths nor raise a finger in
the street without attracting attention. Vandover was not at all certain
that he cared to be seen on Kearney Street as Ida Wade's escort; one
never knew who one was going to meet. Ida was not a bad girl, she was
not notorious, but, confound it, it would look queer; and at the same
time, while Ida was the kind of girl that one did not want to be seen
with, she was not the kind of girl that could be told so. In an upper
box at the Tivoli it would have been different--one could