But in the oblivious courage of the desperate, Gracie heard him not. She held one bottle poised in a light hand, approached as near the flames as she dared, and flung it shrewdly and accurately at his feet. The second she flung, and the third she flung, and then dropped back, panting from the heat and the smoke, to the tea-room, where she clutched with fumbling fingers at the bead curtain, and collapsed in a swoon. And terrible things now happened. For the first bottle and the second bottle and the third bottle smashed at the feet of Kang Foo Ah, and the fire did not subside. It rose over the counter, faster and faster, until he was swallowed in a mouth of white fire, through which, for a moment, one saw his idiot yellow face and antic limbs. Then, mercifully, he disappeared.... The engine, brave with noise and glitter, forced a way up the street, and in ten minutes the men had the fire well under, and Gracie was on the pavement with first-aid men about her. As the water coursed over her neck, and the brandy slid between her lips, she made little movements, and murmured. “I done my best,” she sobbed. “I done my best. I tried to save him. And the shop, too. What happened? Is he all right?” “Now, kid,” said the crowd, “that’s all right. Don’t you worry. Feeling better? That’s the style.” “Yes; you done all right, you did. No; we couldn’t get him. He was under before we could get in. Extinguishers wasn’t much good in that bloody furnace.” “It was the damn pluckiest thing ever I see. You done your best. No one can’t do more’n that. Way you kept your nerve and copped hold of them things.” “I see it all, I did. ’Aving a row, wasn’t you? When he knocked the lamp over, trying to wollop you one? Ah, he was an old blighter, when all’s said and done.” So Gracie, pale, trembling and dumb, was lifted to her feet and handed over to her friends, who took her home. The inquest was held next day, and various witnesses were called, including the three friends who had seen everything from start to finish. And Gracie was complimented by the Coroner and the Brigade Superintendent on her courage, self-control and resource. It was added that the Royal Humane Society had been apprised of the facts of the case; and although Kang Foo Ah had perished in the fire, it was certainly not because anything that could have been done had been left undone; Miss Gracie Goodnight had done more, far more, than anyone, especially a woman, could have been expected to do in such circumstances. There were cheers for Gracie as she left the court, and four photographers from news agencies and picture papers stepped forward with levelled cameras to get lasting records of that glorious, smiling head. The smile in those pictures, which you may find if you hunt up the files, is as strange and inscrutable as the smile of Mona Lisa, though there is that in its pose which seems to say: “Hands off. I’ll learn anybody to mess my hair about.”