The attitude and conduct of the crowd was afterwards the subject of much inquiry and no little suspicion, but there really was no ground for either doubt or astonishment. If the fire had broken out at night, there is every reason to believe that the natural tones of alarm would have taken a louder form of demonstration. If such a fire had broken out in London, where persons are customarily to be found at all times on every floor of a large warehouse, and where the comparative familiarity of people with such incidents leads them to take wiser steps than provincials, the shout of "Fire! fire!" would probably have been at once raised even in broad daylight. But that people unaccustomed to such things, paralysed by terror to a large extent, and in a still greater degree stupefied by wonderment, made no shouts loud enough to arrest the conversation of the endangered little party above, is not, it appears to me, very remarkable. The sounds which first greeted the ears of Mr. Albert Newton and his guest caused them to listen, and simultaneously one man in the mob (for a mob had by this time formed) did shout "Fire!" A smell of singed material also greeted the nostrils of the little party. It is needless to say, that these persons immediately rushed to the window with the view of ascertaining what was the matter, and determining the course to be pursued if, as they had already almost ascertained, their own lives were in jeopardy. The appearance of Mr. Albert Newton at the window elicited a shriek from the women and girls, and a corresponding cry of alarm from the men below. "My God!" exclaimed Mr. Albert Newton, "our place is on fire." As he spoke, the flames burst through the lower windows in a dense mass; and although the part of the building in which the manufacturer and his guest were standing was considerably to the east of that part on which the fire had taken its principal hold, there was sufficient palpable cause of danger to whiten the cheeks of both men, and to cause the proprietor--who had, of course, far less experience in such matters than the surveyor, Mr. Phillimore--to betray a degree of confusion which gave that worthy gentleman perhaps more anxiety than the fire alone could have done. With a degree of calmness and self-possession worthy of the crisis, Mr. Phillimore asked Mr. Newton what means of escape they had, and implored him to be calm, as it might need all their self-possession as well as their courage to extricate themselves. "Shall we leap out of the window?" exclaimed the embarrassed man. "No," was the firm reply. "Do you think we can safely descend the staircase?" "Let us try." The party then descended one flight of stairs, but found a dense vapour issuing up the staircase,--an impassable difficulty. "We are lost!" exclaimed Mr. Newton. The surveyor's countenance betrayed intense anxiety as he apprehended that the terrified man's ejaculation involved an awful truth.