"Good God! my fran'. We come yondeh so
quick we can! But--foudre tonnerre!--look that house here fill' with
ba-bee'! What we goin' do? Those Sister' can't climb on roof with bocket'
wateh. You see I got half-dozen boy' up yondeh; if I go 'way they dis-cend
and run off at the fire, spark' fall on roof an'--" his thumb flew out.
"Sparks! Heavens! Manouvrier, your house is in the path of the _flames!_"
The man flew at me and hung over me, his strong locks shaking, his great
black fist uplifted and the only tears in his eyes I ever saw there.
"Damnession! She's not mine! I trade her to God faw these one! Go! tell
him she's his, he kin burn her if he feel like'!" He gave a half laugh,
fresh witness of his distress, and went into the gate of the asylum.
I smiled--what could I do?--and was turning away, when I saw the chief of
the fire department. It took but one moment to tell him my want, and in
another he had put the cottage roof under the charge of four of his men
with instructions not to leave it till the danger was past or the house
burning. The engine near us had drawn the well dry and was coming away. He
met it, pointed to where, beneath swirling billows of black smoke, the
pretty gable of the taxidermist's house shone like a white sail against a
thundercloud, gave orders and disappeared.
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