"Yes, decidedly. Nothing will move me. You may do your worst." "Very good," remarked Gorman, advancing with the lighted paper towards the heap of shavings. Boone sprang towards him, and, seizing his arms, grasped the light and crushed it out. "What would you do, madman?" he cried. "You can only ruin me, but do you not know that I will have the power to denounce you as a fire-raiser?" Gorman laughed, and returned to the fireplace, while Boone sat down on a chair almost overcome with terror. "What! you dare to defy me?" said Gorman, with an air of assumed pity. "A pretty case you would have to make out of it. You fill your shop with combustibles, you warn your tenant upstairs to get out of the premises for a time in a way that must be quite unaccountable to her (until the fire accounts for it), and your own clerk sees you spilling turpentine about the place the day before the fire occurs, and yet you have the stupidity to suppose that people will believe you when you denounce _me_!" Poor David Boone's wits seemed to be sharpened by his despair, for he said suddenly, after a short pause-- "If the case is so bad it will tell against yourself, Gorman, for I shall be certainly convicted, and the insurance will not be paid to you." "Ay, but the case is not so bad as it looks," said Gorman, "if you only have the sense to hold your tongue and do what you are told; for nobody knows all these things but you and me, and nobody can put them together except ourselves--d'ye see?" "It matters not," said Boone firmly; "I _won't_ do it--there!" Both men leaped up. At the same moment there was a sound as of something falling in the shop. They looked at each other. "Go see what it is," said Gorman. The other stepped to the door. "It's only two of my wax-dolls tumbled off the shelf," he said on returning. An exclamation of horror escaped him, for he saw that the heap of shavings had been set on fire during his momentary absence, and Gorman stood watching them with a demoniacal grin. Boone was struck dumb. He could not move or speak. He made a feeble effort to stretch out his hands as if to extinguish the fire, but Gorman seized him in his powerful grasp and held him fast. In a few seconds the flames were leaping up the walls, and the room was so full of smoke that they were driven into the front shop. "Now, then," said Gorman in a fierce whisper, "your _only_ chance is to act out your part as wisely as you can. Shout _fire_! now till you're black in the face--fire! _Fire_!! FIRE!!!" David Boone obeyed with all his might, and, when Gorman released him, ran back into the parlour to try to extinguish the flames, but he was driven back again, scorched and half-choked, while Gorman ran off at full speed to the nearest station, gave the alarm, received the shilling reward for being first to give the call, and then went leisurely home to bed. CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT. AT THE POST OF DUTY.