was still burning.

They turned into the "main road" at a dog trot and became part of a
crowd of oddly dressed people, all running in the same direction.

"Web's place, ain't it?" asked Eri of Seth Wingate, who was lumbering
along with a wooden bucket in one hand and the pitcher of his wife's
best washstand set in the other.

"Yes," breathlessly answered Mr. Wingate, "and it's a goner, they tell
me. Every man's got to do his part if they're going to save it. I allers
said we ought to have a fire department in this town."

Considering that Seth had, for the past eight years, persistently
opposed in town-meeting any attempt to purchase a hand engine, this was
a rather surprising speech, but no one paid any attention to it then.

The fire was in the billiard saloon sure enough, and the back portion
of the building was in a blaze when they reached it. Ladders were placed
against the eaves, and a line of men with buckets were pouring water on
the roof. The line extended to the town pump, where two energetic youths
in their shirtsleeves were working the handle with might and main. The
houses near at hand were brilliantly illuminated, and men and women were
bringing water from them in buckets, tin pails, washboilers, and even
coalscuttles.

Inside the saloon another hustling crowd was busily working to "save"
Mr. Saunders' property. A dozen of the members had turned the biggest
pool table over on its back and were unscrewing the legs, heedless of
the fact that to attempt to get the table through the front door was
an impossibility and that, as the back door was in the thickest of the
fire, it, too, was out of the question. A man appeared at the open front
window of the second story with his arms filled with bottles of various
liquids, "original packages" and others. These, with feverish energy, he
threw one by one into the street, endangering the lives of everyone
in range and, of course, breaking every bottle thrown. Some one of
the cooler heads calling his attention to these facts, he retired and
carefully packed all the empty bottles, the only ones remaining, into a
peach basket and tugged the latter downstairs and to a safe place on a
neighboring piazza. Then he rested from his labors as one who had done
all that might reasonably be expected.

Mr. Saunders himself, lightly attired in a nightshirt tucked into a
pair of trousers, was rushing here and there, now loudly demanding more
water, and then stopping to swear