, disengaging herself
from the vegetables.

"Where are they?" asked a brass-helmeted man, quietly, as the head of
the Escape went crashing through an upper window.

"The top floor! all of 'em there!--top flo-o-o-r!"

"No--no-o-o! some on the second fl-o-o-or!" yelled Mr Twitter.

"I say _top--floo-o-o-r_," repeated the wife.

"You forget--baby--ba-i-by!" roared the husband.

A wild shriek was Mrs Twitter's reply.

The quiet man with the brass helmet had run up the Escape quite
regardless of these explanations. At the same time top windows were
opened up, and little night-dressed figures appeared at them all,
apparently making faces, for their cries were drowned in the shouts
below.

From these upper windows smoke was issuing, but not yet in dense,
suffocating volumes. The quiet man of the Escape entered a second floor
window through smoke and flames as though he were a salamander.

The crowd below gave him a lusty cheer, for it was a great surging crowd
by that time; nevertheless it surged within bounds, for a powerful body
of police kept it back, leaving free space for the firemen to work.

A moment or two after the quiet fireman had entered, the night-dressed
little ones disappeared from the other windows and congregated, as if by
magic, at the window just above the head of the Escape. Almost
simultaneously the fly-ladder of the Escape--used for upper windows--was
swung out, and when the quiet fireman had got out on the window-sill
with little Lucy in his arms and little Alice held by her dress in his
teeth, its upper rounds touched his knees, as if with a kiss of
recognition!

He descended the fly-ladder, and shoved the two terrified little ones
somewhat promptly into the canvas shoot, where a brother fireman was
ready to pilot them together xxx to the ground. Molly being big had to
be carried by herself, but Willie and Fred went together.

During all this time poor Mrs Frog had given herself over to the one
idea of screaming "baby! bai-e-by!" and struggling to get free from the
two policemen, who had come to the relief of Sir Richard, and who
tenderly restrained her.

In like manner Mr and Mrs Twitter, although not absolutely in need of
restraint, went about wringing their hands and making such confused and
contradictory statements that no one could understand what they meant,
and the firemen quietly went on with their work quite regardless of
their existence.

"Policeman!" said Sam Twitter, lo