and Crown; where Bargees
and their wives sit of an evening drinking their supper beer, and
toasting their supper cheese at a glowing basketful of coals that
sticks out into the room under a great hooded chimney and is warmer and
prettier and more comforting than any other fireplace _I_ ever saw.

There was a pleasant party of barge people round the fire. You might
not have thought it pleasant, but they did; for they were all friends
or acquaintances, and they liked the same sort of things, and talked
the same sort of talk. This is the real secret of pleasant society. The
Bargee Bill, whom the children had found so disagreeable, was considered
excellent company by his mates. He was telling a tale of his own
wrongs--always a thrilling subject. It was his barge he was speaking
about.

"And 'e sent down word 'paint her inside hout,' not namin' no colour,
d'ye see? So I gets a lotter green paint and I paints her stem to stern,
and I tell yer she looked A1. Then 'E comes along and 'e says, 'Wot yer
paint 'er all one colour for?' 'e says. And I says, says I, 'Cause I
thought she'd look fust-rate,' says I, 'and I think so still.' An' he
says, 'DEW yer? Then ye can just pay for the bloomin' paint yerself,'
says he. An' I 'ad to, too." A murmur of sympathy ran round the
room. Breaking noisily in on it came Bobbie. She burst open the swing
door--crying breathlessly:--

"Bill! I want Bill the Bargeman."

There was a stupefied silence. Pots of beer were held in mid-air,
paralysed on their way to thirsty mouths.

"Oh," said Bobbie, seeing the bargewoman and making for her. "Your barge
cabin's on fire. Go quickly."

The woman started to her feet, and put a big red hand to her waist, on
the left side, where your heart seems to be when you are frightened or
miserable.

"Reginald Horace!" she cried in a terrible voice; "my Reginald Horace!"

"All right," said Bobbie, "if you mean the baby; got him out safe. Dog,
too." She had no breath for more, except, "Go on--it's all alight."

Then she sank on the ale-house bench and tried to get that breath of
relief after running which people call the 'second wind.' But she felt
as though she would never breathe again.

Bill the Bargee rose slowly and heavily. But his wife was a hundred
yards up the road before he had quite understood what was the matter.

Phyllis, shivering by the canal side, had hardly heard the quick
approaching feet before the woman had flung herself on the railing