“Where are they?” I asked again and again, and broke out cursing furiously; but every one I spoke to evaded a direct answer. “Have that arch fiend and his red devils carried them off?” I asked at last; and to this I got hushed, astonished, terrified replies of— “No, monsieur!” and, “No indeed, monsieur! They have escaped!” and, “Oh, but no, monsieur!” Flinging myself fiercely away from the crowd, I rushed to look into a detached two-story outbuilding which had but now got fairly burning. I wondered if there were no stuff in it which I might rescue. The smoke and flame were pouring so hotly from the door that I could not see what was inside. But as I peered in, my face shaded with my hand from the scorching glare, I heard a faint, pitiful mewing just above me, and looked up. There, on the sill of a window of the second story, a window from which came volumes of smoke, but of flame only a slender, darting tongue, crouched a white kitten. With a curious gripping at my heart I recognized it as one which I had seen playing at Yvonne’s feet the evening before. I remembered how it was forever pouncing with wild glee upon the tip of her little slipper, forever being gently rolled over and tickled into fresh ecstasies. The scene cut itself upon my brain as I ran for a yet undamaged ladder, which I noticed leaning against a shed near by. The action doubtless filled the crowd with amazement, but no one raised a hand to help me. The ladder was long and very awkward to manage, but in little more than the time it takes to tell of it I got it up beside the window and sprang to the rescue. By this time, however, the flames were spouting forth. The moment I came within reach of it the little animal leapt upon me and clung with frantic claws. A vivid sheet of flame burst out in my very face, hurling me from the ladder; yet I succeeded in alighting on my feet, jarred, but whole. There was a smell of burnt hair in my nostrils, and I saw that the kitten’s coat, no longer white, was finely crisped. But what I smelt was not all kitten’s hair. Lifting my hand to my bitterly smarting face, I found my own locks, over my forehead, seriously diminished, while my once fairly abundant eyebrows and eyelashes were clean gone. My moustache, however, had escaped—and even at that moment, when my mind was surely well occupied with matters of importance, I could feel a thrill of satisfaction. A man’s vanity is liable to assert itself at almost any crisis; and it did not occur to me that a man lacking eyebrows and eyelashes could not hope to be redeemed from the ridiculous by the most luxuriant moustache that ever grew. Half dazed, I stared about me, wondering what was next to be done. Suddenly I thought—“Why, of course; they have gone to Father Fafard’s!”