Encouraging himself thus, he grasped his preventer, and pulled about the _debris_ in various places of which he had some suspicion; but the engines had done their work so effectually that not a spark remained. Then Joe walked up and down, and in and out for an hour; studied the half-consumed pictures that still hung on the walls of one of the lower rooms, which had not been completely destroyed; moralised on the dire confusion and ruin that could be accomplished in so short a space of time; reflected on the probable condition of the unfortunates who had been burnt out; on the mutability of human affairs in general, and wondered what his "owld mother" would think of him, if she saw him in his forlorn situation. This latter thought caused his mind to revert to ghosts; but he was comforted by hearing the slow, distant foot-fall of the policeman. On it came, not unlike the supposed step of an unearthly visitant, until the guardian of the night stood revealed before him on the other side of the road. "It's a cowld night intirely," cried Corney. "It is," responded the policeman. "How goes the inimy?" inquired the fireman. "Just gone three," replied the other. The policeman's voice, although gruff, was good-humoured and hearty; but he was evidently a strict disciplinarian, for he uttered no other word, and passed on. "Faix, I'm gettin' slaipy," remarked Joe to himself, with a loud yawn. "I'll go and rest a bit." So saying, he re-entered the ruin, and with the aid of his lantern sought about for the least uncomfortable apartment on the ground floor. He selected one which was comparatively weather-tight. That is to say, only one of the windows had been dashed out, and the ceiling was entire, with the exception of a hole about four feet wide, through which the charred beams above could be seen depicted against the black sky. There was about an inch of water on the floor; but this was a small matter, for Joe's boots were thick and strong. The door, too, had been burst off its hinges, and lay on the floor; but Joe could raise this, and place it in its original position. The room had been a parlour and there were several damaged prints hanging on the walls, besides a quantity of detached paper hanging from them. Most of the furniture had been removed at the commencement of the fire; but a few broken articles remained, and one big old easy-chair, which had either been forgotten, or deemed unworthy of removal, by the men of the Salvage Corps. [See note 1.] Joe wheeled the chair to the fireplace--not that there was any fire in it; on the contrary, it was choked up with fallen bricks and mortar, and the hearth was flooded with water; but, as Joe remarked to himself, "it felt more homelike an' sociable to sit wid wan's feet on the finder!"