e on each knee--partook of a comfortable repast of bread and
milk.

He had hard work to induce the baby, after it was over, to resume his
slumbers. That young gentleman evidently had a vivid recollection of
some one having walked about with him and sung him to sleep in the
middle of the day, and he resented now being unceremoniously laid on his
back and expected to slumber without persuasion.

Jeffreys had to take him up finally and pace the room for an hour, and
about ten o'clock sat down to his interrupted work. Till midnight he
laboured on; then, cold and wearied, he put out his little candle and
lay himself beside the children on the bed.

He had scarcely done so when he became aware of a glare at the window,
which brought him to his feet in an instant. It was a fire somewhere.

His first panic that it might be in the house was quickly relieved. It
was not even in Storr Alley, but in one of the courts adjoining. He
looked down from his window. The alley was silent and empty. No one
there, evidently, had yet had an alarm.

Quickly putting on his boots, he hurried down, and made his way in the
direction of the flames. From below they were still scarcely visible,
and he concluded that the fire, wherever it was, must have broken out in
a top storey. Driver's Court, which backed onto Storr Alley, with which
it was connected at the far end by a narrow passage, was an unknown land
to Jeffreys. The Jews in Storr's had no dealings with the Samaritans in
Driver's; for Storr Alley, poor as it might be, prided itself on being
decent and hard-working, whereas Driver's--you should have heard the
stories told about it. It was a regular thieves' college. A stranger
who chanced into Driver's with a watch-chain upon him, or a chink of
money in his pocket, or even a good coat on his back, might as soon
think of coming out by the way he had entered as of flying. There were
ugly stories of murders and mysteries under those dark staircases, and
even the police drew the line at Driver's Court, and gave it the go-by.

Jeffreys had nothing to apprehend as he rushed down the passage. He had
neither watch, chain, nor money, nor good coat. His footsteps echoing
noisily in the midnight silence brought a few heads to their windows,
and almost before he stood in the court there was the cry of "Fire!"

Terrible anywhere, such a cry in a court like Driver's was terrible
indeed. In a moment the narrow pavement swarmed with peop