“Thanks,” said Northcote, placing it in the inner pocket of his overcoat. At that moment a clerk from one of the upper stories came running down the stairs. “The place is on fire,” he cried. “The top landing is so full of smoke you can’t go up to it.” “I thought there was a smell of burning,” said Northcote. “I say, it must be my room!” “If you are Mr. Northcote, it is certainly your room.” The advocate turned round hastily, and proceeded to ascend the steep and rickety old stairs. He was turned back, however, as he had anticipated, by other clerks who were running down. “The place is on fire,” they cried excitedly. “The smoke will choke you.” XXXIX WITHOUT FEAR AND WITHOUT STAIN Northcote made no further show of resistance to the inevitable, but accompanied the excited clerks into Fleet Street. The window of his room abutting on to it had already attracted the notice of the crowd that thronged its pavements. By the time he had crossed to the other side of the road and had taken up his stand with the knot of spectators that was rapidly assembling at the end of a bystreet, the smoke had increased considerably in volume. “Not much doubt about there being a fire,” was the verdict of those around him. The bunch of witnesses in the side street increased every instant. Persons riding on the outsides of the omnibuses stood up to look. Policemen on point-duty came out of the press of the traffic to gaze with concern and inquiry at the smoke which now was belching forth in a black mass. “Must ha’ begun in the chimbley,” said one of Northcote’s neighbors, a man without a collar. “That’s soot.” “It’s Pearmain’s Hotel,” said another. “No,” said a third, “it’s Shepherd’s Inn.” “If it’s Shepherd’s Inn it will take it all,” said a fourth. “It has been condemned by the County Council for the past two years. It is so crazy it can hardly stand up in a gale.” “It is rotten and rat-ridden from top to bottom. It must be five hundred years old.” “Five ’undred me leg,” said the man without a collar. “It ain’t more than two.” “Lord Bacon lived in it, anyway.” “Wot if he did? I tell you it ain’t more than two.” The controversialist spat on the pavement authoritatively, and those who surrounded him, who knew he was wrong, deferred to his opinion humbly. “There’s the flame,” said a quiet man excitedly. “Why don’t they bring the engines?” “They want it to get a firm ’old,” said the man without a collar, “so that they can put it out in style.” “They will have something to go at when they do come,” said a nervous man, who wore spectacles. “There it goes through the roof. Look, look, see that!”