We had climbed painfully to the top of Parkington Chambers, and had just got inside GIDLING's outer door, when we noticed a very marked and curious smell. "There's something wrong about this," remarked GIDLING, severely. I agreed with him, adding, out of a nervous politeness, from which I suffer sometimes, that I rather liked the smell, "Then you're an idiot," said GIDLING, who never suffers from politeness at all. He opened the door of his sitting-room, and then we saw at once what was the matter. The lower part of the chimney was on fire; the fire-place was covered with glowing masses of soot which had fallen. "HANKIN's had another nasty touch of that influenza," remarked GIDLING. HANKIN is GIDLING's servant, and at regular intervals becomes incapacitated for work. HANKIN himself says that it is influenza, and speaks of "another of them relapses;" GIDLING thinks that it is as a rule intoxication. As a matter of fact HANKIN would not be a bad servant if his zeal was distributed over him rather more evenly. It is always either excessive or defective. It comes out in lumps. In neglecting to have the chimney swept HANKIN had shown defect; in the way that he had piled up the fire he had shown excess. In subsequently absenting himself from the flat he had shown a certain amount of wisdom, for GIDLING was rather angry. "Not but what I can put it all right," said GIDLING. "I'm a practical man. Fire Brigade? I thought you'd suggest a few fire brigades. No, not exactly. I'll show you how to stop a thing of this kind." He went into his bed-room, and returned with the water-jug. An iron ladder from the main staircase led through a trap-door in the roof. GIDLING went up this ladder with the water-jug, while I waited to see the result in the sitting-room, I could hear him walking about on the roof, and I looked out for a deluge of water to descend down the chimney into the fire-place. But no deluge came. Presently GIDLING descended and entered the room with the empty water-jug. "Did it splash much?" he asked. "No, there was no water came down at all." "Oh? Then I've emptied this water-jug down the wrong chimney. We'd better clear out of this." At this juncture HANKIN returned, and GIDLING said a good deal to him. HANKIN was left to put out the fire, and we went back again to the Club. GIDLING seemed rather annoyed with me for laughing about his mistake. "It's a deuced awkward thing," he said. "That water went down somebody's chimney, and it's put somebody's fire out. That means unpleasantness, you know, if he or she finds out who did it." "Who live in the flats below yours?" I asked.