ON FREETHY'S QUAY.

_From "Q_."

Troy Town.

New Year's Eve, 1892.

MY DEAR PRINCE,--The New Year is upon us, a season which the devout
Briton sets aside for taking stock of his short-comings. I know not if
Prester John introduced this custom among the Abyssinians: but we find
it very convenient here.

In particular I have been vexing myself to-day over the gradual
desuetude of our correspondence. Doubtless the fault is mine: and
doubtless I compare very poorly with Dexter, whose letters are bound
to be bright and frequent. But Dexter clings to London; and from
London, as from your own Africa, _semper aliquid novi_. But of Troy
during these twelve months there has been little or nothing to delate.
The small port has been enjoying a period of quiet which even the
General Election, last summer, did not seriously disturb. As you know,
the election turned on the size of mesh proper to be used in the
drift-net fishery. We wore favours of red, white and blue, symbolising
our hatred of the mesh favoured by Mr. Gladstone; and carried our man.
Had other constituencies as sternly declined to fritter away their
voting strength upon side issues, Lord Salisbury would now be in power
with a solid majority at his back.

My purpose, however, is not to talk of politics, but to give you
a short description of an event which has greatly excited us, and
redeemed from monotony (though at the eleventh hour) the year Eighteen
ninety-two. I refer to the great fire on Freethy's Quay, where Mr. Wm.
Freethy has of late been improving his timber-store with a number of
the newest mechanical inventions; among others, with a steam engine
which operates on a circular saw, and impels it to cut up oak poles
(our winter fuel) with incredible rapidity. It was here that the
outbreak occurred, on Christmas Eve--of all days in the year--between
five and six o'clock in the afternoon.

But I should first tell you that our town has enjoyed a long immunity
from fires; and although we possess a Volunteer Fire Brigade, at once
efficient and obliging, and commanded by Mr. Patrick Sullivan (an
Irishman), the men have had little or no opportunity of combating
their sworn foe. The Brigade was founded in the early autumn of 1873,
and presented by public subscription with a handsome manual engine and
a wooden house to contain it. This house, painted a bright vermilion,
is a conspicuous object at the top of the hill above the town, as
you turn off towards the