“Is this really to the point? You are speaking of the fire at Mr. Pooke’s, not of that at Mr. Pepperill’s.” “One fire hangs on to the other. You’ll find that out, gents, when you’ve heard my tale.” “Proceed, then.” “Well’it seems that Roger Redmore felt mighty grateful because of what Kitty and I had done. I was agent for an insurance company, and I persuaded my brother-in-law to insure in it, but I must say he rather astonished me at the figure at which he insured, and made me a bit uneasy; I hadn’t such a terrible high opinion of him as to think he might not be up to tricks.” “What do you mean by tricks?” “Doin’ something to his insured goods that weren’t worth much, and gettin’ for ’em payment as if they was gold. But, your worship, that you’ll say ain’t to the point. No more it is’we come to facts, not opinions, don’t us? Well, I had been to Brimpts about the oak we was fellin’ and barkin’, and I wanted to tell my brother-in-law as how I thought we could deal with the dockyard at Portsmouth. So I left the moor and drove down in my conveyance,’which is nothing but a donkey cart and a jackass to draw’n,’and when I came in the dark o’ the evening to my cottage, there I found Roger Redmore in the bosom of his family, so to speak. ’Twas awk’ard for he and awk’ard for me, as there was a warrant out again’ him, and so I drove right on and on to the Cellars. I found Pasco there in the house all by hisself, which was coorious. He had sent his wife, my sister Zerah, away somewhere, and Kitty, my daughter, away somewhere else, and he was in a pretty take-on because I turned up unexpected. I didn’t quite understand why he was in so poor a temper, and why he should turn me out of the house as he did’and I had got nowhere to go to for a night’s lodgin’. You see, your worships, I couldn’t go home, what wi’ all the beds and every hole and corner chockfull o’ childer as thick as fleas in a dog’s back, not to mention the woman and that chap Roger in hiding, who didn’t want to be found. But Pasco, he wouldn’t listen to reason, and he was that suspicious and that queer in all his goings-on, that I thought some mischief wor up, and that I’d bide handy and keep an eye on him. Well, gentlemen, when he jostled me out o’ the house door, I went to the warehouse, and it wasn’t locked, so I stepped in and found the ladder and clambered up that. Thinks I to myself, if Pasco don’t mean no wickedness, well, I can sleep here comfortable enough, anyhow. There were plenty o’ fleeces’they weren’t over clean and sweet, but in such a case one can’t be partic’lar. I hadn’t been there a terrible long time before I heard the door open and I see’d a light. So I went to the ladder head and looked down, and there sure enough wor Pasco! I watched him awhile to see what May-games he wor up to, and at last I spied what it wor. He were arranging and settling shavings among the coal knobs, so as to make up grand fires, and he was gettin’ everything ready to burn down the whole