As the last girl crossed the bridge, the fireman who had been assisting Lucien and William ordered them to get out quickly. The big room was now full of smoke, the lads and the firemen were almost choked with it, and tongues of flame were beginning to lick one of the wooden partition walls. Just as the man spoke, the partition fell. A burning scantling struck Lucien on the head and sent him to the floor. In a moment William grabbed the burning timber with his bare hands and tried to lift it, but without the assistance of the fireman, who inserted his hook-axe under it, and added a man's strength to that of the boy's, he would not have been successful. Lucien was still conscious when they picked him up, and, with the assistance of William, made the journey across the "bridge" to Whimple's office in safety. Here kindly hands temporarily bound up his wounds and those of William too, the latter meanwhile asserting loudly, "Lucien did it; he thought of it; Lucien did it." Finally, Lucien's parched and cracked lips parted in a smile. "Couldn't have done it without you, William," he gasped, and then the floor, so William Adolphus Turnpike afterwards solemnly asserted, rose up and hit him, and he knew nothing more until, in the evening, he woke up in a private ward in St. Michael's Hospital. There were only two beds in that ward. When William opened his eyes, a kindly faced nursing sister was bending over him. "Where's Lucien?" he demanded. The sister smiled. "In the bed near you," she said, gently; "his mother and father have just left him; he's----" William sat straight up in the bed. "Say," he said, brokenly, "he ain't going to die, is he?" "No," she answered, "he's doing splendidly, and he's fast asleep." William laughed happily. "Oh, but he's a pippin, a real pippin; and me thinking he was a dub. If he wakes up, and I'm asleep, nurse, you can tell him from me that I'm a mutt. He's the real thing, is Lucien." Then he looked down at his hands, swathed in bandages, and grinned. "Kinder early for winter mitts," he said. "Gee, but my hands sting! Has my Ma and Pa been here?" "They're here now, waiting to see you. They've been here for two hours, William." "Two hours! and me lying on the downy while they're worryin'. Me--uh!--I ain't worth it." The sister opened the door, and Mr. and Mrs. Turnpike, with anxious faces and eyes somewhat dimmed, were soon bending over their boy, kissing him, and whispering words of love and praise and sympathy. After their farewells, William turned to the sister with shining eyes. "Nobody ever had a Ma and Pa like mine," he said, "and my hands are sore, but I'm tired--tired--" he closed his eyes--"and I'm a mutt. Lucien's got it on me all over when it comes to a show down." And William slept.