THERE is no truth in the report that a whole Brigade of Firemen and
Sixteen Fire-engines are now permanently encamped in Kensington Gardens
Square, and that Captain SHAW is about to take furnished lodgings in the
immediate neighbourhood of Westbourne Grove.
No, those men walking up and down the shop and eying everybody
suspiciously are not shop-walkers, as you suppose. Four of them are
detectives, with orders summarily to arrest any customer who looks at
all like an incendiary, and the others are disguised Firemen.
[Illustration: Excitement at Pad-inked-on.]
I don't quite know what you mean by speaking of a "holocaust" in
connection with the recent disastrous conflagration which destroyed five
whole streets and a hundred lives, but no doubt the cost _will_ be
enough to make anybody holloa!
"Why have we to hire a boat to take us from the garden-gate to our
front-door?" Oh, because five million gallons of water were poured down
our street by the Fire-Brigade men the day before yesterday, and the
Main Drainage system is only equal to removing a few gallons at a time.
Naturally the Water Companies have taken advantage of this state of
things to suggest to householders that, as they have so much water in
their cellars, they can do without any in their cisterns, and to
announce therefore that the supply will be discontinued for a week.
Is it a fact that Insurance Premiums in Bayswater now vary in proportion
to the distance from Westbourne Grove?
How curious that "two huge columns of fire" should produce at least half
a dozen equally huge columns of print!
No, as you say, this wall-paper is not pretty, and walking on hard
concrete-floors is a little unpleasant at first; but then, you see, they
are both absolutely incombustible.
The Fire-engine in the Hall is certainly a little in the way of the
servants; but then what a comfort it is to feel that with this
precaution, _and_ powerful hydrants laid on to each floor, _and_
sleeping in fire-proof beds with one's clothes on, _and_ having an
outside iron stair-case to each window in the house, we really _are_
pretty safe against the next conflagration, in spite of the fact that we
live just opposite a Universal Provider!
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