“He describes the Fire very fully. He tells how at three o’clock on Sunday morning, Jane, the maid, called him up, saying there was a big blaze near them. But it is some hours later before he understands that this is something more than an ordinary fire. Then he goes to the Tower, and from one of the roofs there, sees all the wharves and quays and the houses in Thames Street (Chaucer’s street, you remember,) in a blaze. The houses on London Bridge were beginning to burn also. He tells of the scenes on the river where the people were rushing from their blazing houses on the bank and crowding into boats carrying all they could snatch up in their flight, ‘_poor people staying in their houses as long as till the very fire touched them_,’ he writes, ‘_and then running into boats, or clambering from one pair of stairs by the waterside to another. And among other things, the poor pigeons, I perceived were loth to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconys till they burned their wings and fell down._’” “We went down one of those very stairs on to the quay when we saw the sailor man telling the boys of his travels—in Queen Elizabeth’s days,” interrupted Betty. “And I remember the pigeons were flying about then! Do go on, Godmother.” “Well, then Pepys goes on to say he takes a boat and rows down the river to Whitehall and informs the King and the Duke of York (afterwards, you know, James the Second) that this fire is very serious. So the King orders him to tell the Lord Mayor to have houses pulled down as fast as he can, to stop the flames, if possible, by making big gaps in the streets. For the wooden houses were burning furiously, as you saw just now, and the fire leapt from one to another. Soldiers were sent to help in this work, but all in vain, for fiery flakes were carried by the wind and fell on other roofs which began to blaze. Then he describes the streets blocked with carts in which furniture and treasures were stacked, and thronged also with escaping people, crying and lamenting. In Cannon Street he meets the distracted Lord Mayor who exclaims, ‘_Lord! what can I do?... I have been pulling down houses, but the fire overtakes us faster than we can do it._’