“Well,” said Phineas, “they never could have come through if it hadn’t been for Apollos! ‘Those angels have just _got_ to be saved, if any of us are,’ says Apollos. So he grabbed up a saw and a screw-driver, and what the saw couldn’t do, the screw-driver could. He worked like lightning, Apollos did. ‘Easy, boys, easy,’ he kept saying, calm as if he was down at the boarding-house, eating griddle cakes. ‘It’ll be quite a disappointment for the boss, anyhow, the best we can do,’ says Apollos. So while the rest of the fellers were fighting the fire outside with brooms and spades and inside with whatever water they could get, and, gosh, it wasn’t much, Apollos got Prince Eugene Gage, the town drunkard, you know, and One-Eye Sims that’s supposed to keep the toll-house, and that hulkingest one of the two big Beecher boys, and the three of them, along with him and me, we got those angels out somehow, safe enough, and not much jarred, really, sir. And we carried them into the garage here, and stuck ’em on the horses, as you see.” “Good work, my lad, but how about Apollos?” “Well, you know how thorough Apollos is. He suddenly remembered that the half-size study was in back there, right in the midst of the fire; and he’d heard you say you wanted to keep it and send it down to New York. We couldn’t stop him. He got away from us, went in there, slid the thing quick down onto the little green truck, and pushed it out over the sill just in time. Only not quite in time. That’s how he got his broken leg. And his shirt had just begun burning on him when he fell over himself. The doctor says the arm will be all right inside a week, but the leg’s a longer job.” I had rather lost interest in Phineas, before I went away, but now I found myself changing. I was glad to see that boy’s complete loyalty to Apollos; recognition of valor had apparently left no room for the customary Stickney complacency. I had noted, too, that the aristocratic Stickney countenance was somewhat disfigured by a red wound across the upper lip, but I forbore to ask the boy if he got it eating roast corn. Within the garage, I took careful account of my angels. Their celestial composure was scarcely shaken, it would seem. If only I could get them upright again, as successfully as Apollos and his band of ne’er-do-weels had laid them flat, all would yet be well, and the name of Jefferson unmuddied.