For so despotic a character, the Housekeeper had a surprisingly feminine capacity for hysterics, of which she made the most the night of the fire. I admit it was an agitating event for us all. The Fire of London was not so epoch-making. Afterwards the tenants used to speak of the days "Before the Fire," as we still talk at home of the days "Before the War." It happened in July, the third month of our tenancy. J. was away, and, owing to domestic complications, I was alone in our chambers at night. I do not recall the period with pride, for it proved me more of a coward than I cared to acknowledge. If I came home late, it was a struggle to make up my mind to open my front door and face the Unknown on the other side. Once or twice there was a second struggle at the dining-room door, the simple search for biscuits exaggerating itself into a perilous adventure. As I was not yet accustomed to the noises in our chambers, fear followed me to my bedroom, and when the trains on the near railroad bridge awoke me, I lay trembling, certain they were burglars or ghosts, forgetting that visitors of that kind are usually shyer in announcing themselves. Then I began to be ashamed, and there was a night when, though the noises sounded strangely like voices immediately outside my window, I managed to turn over and try to sleep again. This time the danger was real, and, the next thing I knew, somebody was ringing the front door-bell and knocking without stopping, and before I had time to be afraid I was out of bed and at the door. It was the young man from across the hall, who had come to give me the cheerful intelligence that his chambers were on fire, and to advise me to dress as fast as I knew how and get downstairs before the firemen and the hose arrived, or I might not get down at all. I flung myself into my clothes, although, as I am pleased to recall, I had the sense to select my most useful gown, in case but one was left me in the morning, and the curiosity to step for a second on to the leads where the flames were leaping from the young man's windows. As it was too late to help himself, he was waiting, with his servant, to help me. A pile of J.'s drawings lay on a chair in the hall,--I thrust them the young man's outstretched arms. For some incomprehensible reason J.'s huge _schube_ was on another chair,--I threw it into the arms of the young man's servant, who staggered under its unexpected weight. I rushed to my desk to secure the money I was unwilling to leave behind, when a bull's-eye lantern flashed upon me and a policeman ordered me out. Firemen--for London firemen eventually arrive if the fire burns long enough--were dragging up a hose as I flew downstairs, and the policeman had scarcely pushed me into the Housekeeper's room, the young man had just deposited the drawings at my feet, and the servant the _schube_, when the stairs became a raging torrent.