bustle, and he heard the servants and people, as they ran backwards
and forwards, all exclaim, that "the chimney was on fire." After the
fire was put out, and when the bustle was over, S---- said to his
father, "What do people mean when they say the _chimney is on fire_?
What is it that burns?" At this question a silly acquaintance would
probably have laughed in the boy's face; would have expressed
astonishment as soon as his visit was over, at such an instance of
strange ignorance in a boy of nine years old; or, if civility had
prompted any answer, it would perhaps have been, "The chimney's being
on fire, my love, means that the chimney's on fire! Every body knows
what's meant by 'the chimney's on fire!' There's a great deal of
smoke, and sparks, and flame, coming out at the top, you know, when
the chimney's on fire. And it's extremely dangerous, and would set a
house on fire, or perhaps the whole neighbourhood, if it was not put
out immediately. Many dreadful fires, you know, happen in towns, as we
hear for ever in the newspaper, by the chimney's taking fire. Did you
never hear of a chimney's being on fire before? You are a very happy
young gentleman to have lived to your time of life, and to be still at
a loss about such a thing. What burns? Why, my dear Sir, the chimney
burns; fire burns in the chimney. To be sure fires are sad accidents;
many lives are lost by them every day. I had a chimney on fire in my
drawing room last year."

Thus would the child's curiosity have been baffled by a number of
words without meaning or connection; on the contrary, when he applied
to a father, who was interested in his improvement, his sensible
question was listened to with approbation. He was told, that the
chimney's being on fire, was an inaccurate common expression; that it
was the soot in the chimney, not the chimney, that burned; that the
soot was sometimes set on fire by sparks of fire, sometimes by flame,
which might have been accidentally _drawn up_ the chimney. Some of the
soot which had been set on fire, was shown to him; the nature of
burning in general, the manner in which the chimney _draws_, the
meaning of that expression, and many other things connected with the
subject, were explained upon this occasion to the inquisitive boy, who
was thus encouraged to think and speak accurately, and to apply, in
similar difficulties, to the friend who had thus taken the trouble to
understand his simple question. A random answer