_). Be still! I believe there is some truth
to the story.

PIEPENBRINK. Well now, it was very fine of him to save your life; but
that kind of thing often happens.

MRS. PIEPENBRINK. Do tell us about it, Doctor!

BOLZ. The little affair is like a hundred others and would not
interest me at all, had I not been through it myself. Picture to
yourself an old house. I am a student living on the third floor. In
the house opposite me lives a young scholar; we do not know each
other. At dead of night I am awakened by a great noise and a strange
crackling under me. If it were mice, they must have been having a
torchlight procession for the room was brilliantly illuminated. I rush
to the window, the bright flame from the story under me leaps up to
where I stand. My window-panes burst about my head, and a vile cloud
of smoke rushes in on me. There being no great pleasure under the
circumstances in leaning out of the window, I rush to the door and
throw it open. The stairs, too, cannot resist the mean impulse
peculiar to old wood, they are all ablaze. Up three flights of stairs
and no exit! I gave myself up for lost. Half unconscious I hurried
back to the window. I heard the cries from the street, "A man! a man!
This way with the ladder!" A ladder was set up. In an instant it began
to smoke and to burn like tinder. It was dragged away. Then streams of
water from all the engines hissed in the flames beneath me. Distinctly
I could hear each separate stream striking the glowing wall. A fresh
ladder was put up; below there was deathly silence and you can imagine
that I, too, had no desire to make much of a commotion in my fiery
furnace. "It can't be done," cried the people below. Then a full, rich
voice rang out: "Raise the ladder higher!" Do you know, I felt
instantly that this was the voice of my rescuer. "Hurry!" cried those
below. Then a fresh cloud of vapor penetrated the room. I had had my
share of the thick smoke, and lay prostrate on the ground by the
window.

MRS. PIEPENBRINK. Poor Doctor Bolz!

PIEPENBRINK (_eagerly_). Go on!

[SENDEN _starts forward_.]

ADELAIDE (_holding him back_). Please, let him finish, the story is
true!

BOLZ. Then a man's hand seizes my neck. A rope is wound round me under
the arms, and a strong wrist raises me from the ground. A moment later
I was on the ladder, half dragged, half carried; with shirt aflame,
and unconscious, I reached the pavement.--I awoke in the room of the
young scholar