you having a party
up at the Shop, in the superintendent's absence?"

"Not intentionally," replied Sarah Brown. "Why?"

"Well, I just wondered. There's a noise like a thousand mad gramophones
playing backwards, coming from there."

Sarah Brown's misgivings returned like a clap of thunder. She rushed
back to the Shop.

The lantern was standing in the middle of the floor, its glass was
shattered, and out of each of its eight panels streamed a great flame
six or seven feet high, like the petal of an enormous flower. Facing
these flames stood Miss Ford and Mr. Tovey, hand in hand, each singing a
different song very earnestly. Lady Arabel had found somewhere a patent
fire extinguisher, and was putting on her glasses in order to read the
directions. Mr. Frere was hesitating in the background with a leaking
biscuit tin full of water. The Mayor was gone.

"Great Scott!" said Sarah Brown. You'll burn the place down. Look at
that row of petticoats up there, catching fire already. What have you
done with the Mayor?"

"We made him invisible by mistake," whispered Mr. Tovey. "But sh--sh, he
doesn't know it yet."

"Nothing matters," said Miss Ford. "We are all going to America." And
she continued her song, which was an extempore one about the sea.

"But that's no reason why you should burn the house down," said Sarah
Brown.

"That's what I thought," agreed Mr. Frere. "But water won't put out that
flame."

The singers fell silent. Only the voice of the invisible Mayor could be
heard, singing, "If those lips could only speak," in a loud tremulous
voice, to the accompaniment of his own unseen stamping feet.

"You've been putting magic into that flame," said Sarah Brown
distractedly. "I told you it was dangerous. Nothing will put magic out,
except more magic. What will the witch say?"

"It doesn't matter what anybody says," said Miss Ford. "We are all going
to America. No place and no person matters when I am not there. There
are no places and no people existing where I am not. I have suspected it
before, and now I am sure that everything is all a pretence, except me.
Look how easy it was to dismiss that gross grocer from sight. He was
just a bit of background. I have painted him out."

The drapery department on the ceiling was ablaze now, and flakes of ashy
petticoat, and the metal frames of buttons, showered to the floor.

"I will go and get help," said Sarah Brown, and hurried out of doors,
followed feverishly by Dav