There were women with babies, women without babies, and women who might have had babies with them had the Volunteers delayed their operations for a few weeks. There were urchins with boots and urchins without boots, and half-grown people in their fathers’ coats, and other half-grown people in their mothers’ skirts, and children who would grow up into touts, and other children who would grow up into beggar-women and flower-girls. And here and there, like islands in a sea, were prosperous citizens; high and low all brought to a single level by their curiosity. And, of course, there were Republican Volunteers in the crowd, and perhaps agents of the British secret service. To the man who could bide his time the crowd presented a gap here and a gap there, and I slipped into this place and slipped into that place, and presently had a front row view of what was going forward. The Liffey held us in check. It was a high tide, and the wind sent the wave-tops into the air in spray. A quay was on the farther side, and rising beyond, the lovely building of the Customs House, that morning doomed to death and now in the agony. “Sure, and it’s the clock is still going, God save us,” said a lady on my left, drawing a shawl round her infant’s face, and giving it a jerk to send it into dreamland. “And Lady Liberty standing up there so brave, it’s her we must see come down,” answered her crony. “Indade, and I hear tell it’s Lady Hope up there,” retorted she of the baby. I looked up at the statue of Commerce, which crowned the dome of the building. It seemed the final prize to which all the flames were leaping. There was a great to-do going on on the farther side, but the building was large, and the space before it ample. The place was picketed by military, and every now and then some Government motor would dash up or roll away, bringing or carrying off military officials, police officials, and less glorious officials in mufti. Upon the face of the building firemen were at work, pigmy people of no consequence beside the statue, who nevertheless seemed to be making a last stand like warriors driven to the corners of their country. For the wind blew steadily, and every now and then sprang upon the great stone building in a squall, and the tops of the waves which held us where we were, would fly off in spray. And the fiery heart of the building would glow and redden and become fiercer, and the firemen would doubly toil at the hose, which looked like the dead body of some great sea-serpent lately come out of the river. Their backs would bend, and it would come after them ever so unwillingly. And other firemen, creeping about the grey face of the building upon their ladders, would peer at the molten heart through some gaping window, and direct tons of water within.