"Long's you've put out the fire, Miss Patsey, I'll put out the fire department," said she; "they're the only danger. Miss Mercy, you open all the windows; let's git rid of the smoke. Nellie, what you carrying your clothes out for?" Mercedes quite won our hearts by her docility and the quiet way she obeyed. Perhaps it was in recognition that Katy became her tower of refuge when the cause of the fire appeared. It was no less than Amos. He had been hired without any heartless prying into recommendations, on the ideal Altrurian ground of Need. He was asked, to be sure, could he run a furnace, and with the optimism of the African replied that he reckoned he could. He did not add that he had never tried to run one before. Doubtless it was natural that he should not discover the meaning of the cunning chains going through the floors; and when dampers increase the draft if shut and diminish it if open, who can wonder that Amos should artlessly shut everything in sight--including the registers? Natural laws did the rest. Amos was very patient, almost tearful. He said he didn't know whatever Sally would do when he come home outen a job; Sally be'n so satisfied befo' but he didn't cast no blame on nobody. Sally, it came out later, was ill. "Is it anything infectious?" demanded Mercedes' sister, the doctor, who by this time was on the scene. "I dunno, ma'am; I reckon _'tis_," deprecated Amos. "Hit's a right new baby, come a week ago, an' she ain't got up yit." Then it was while Nellie glibly proposed a new man, a man of assured efficiency, two years janitor of a "flat," and the brother of a friend; and Mercedes Van Arden had only bewildered compassion to justify her desire to forgive the culprit; and Doctor Van Arden frowned, that Katy spoke the word of power. "Doctor," said she, "Amos mayn't know much about the furnace, but he's a decent, honest man that found my ten cents out on the steps and gave it to me; and I know how to run furnaces, and I'll learn him. What's more, I can burn up _all_ the coal, and not smoke up the house or the neighborhood. And one good thing--if Amos can't run a furnace, he _knows_ it now, anyhow; there's many a janitor man's been smoking up flats for years ain't found out _that_ yet. Doctor, I'll answer for Amos if you ladies will keep him." Amos was kept. I fancied that Mercedes was almost as grateful as he.