The wondering lord and lady, and still more wondering footmen, glared upon the apparition before them with the most inexplicable amazement, totally at a loss to conceive the cause of such a novel reception.  The terrified pair were, like Othello, “perplexed in the extreme,” when they found themselves, instead of being in the confusion of a fire, deposited beneath the windows of a magnificent carriage, attended by footmen with white torches, and a full dressed lady and gentleman inquiring after them, and the meaning of the extraordinary descent.  A few minutes served to explain the mal a propos mistake; the detected pair sought refuge in the hall of the house, with some such feeling as our first parents experienced when they had tasted the fatal apple in the garden of Eden.  The carriage rolled away with the tittering coachman and footmen, and the ill-suppressed mirth of their master and mistress, who quickly disseminated the story throughout the fashionable throng of the party whither they were bent, and which remained for the rest of the season a standing joke wherever Lord and Lady B. appeared.

Humbled and confused, the unhappy Flybekins could not retrieve the blunder they had committed, and prudently resigned all their ambitious schemes.  So they returned to Devonshire with the unlucky fire-escapes, sincerely regretting they had ever been tempted to purchase them.  But, although the disaster had got wind, and with various versions had reached even into Devonshire, they were much consoled by the following narration of it which appeared in the county paper, in a light most favourable to their interests and reputation, although totally devoid of truth in almost every particular.

The flaming paragraph ran thus:—­“We understand that Mr. and. 
Mrs. Flybekin of ------ in this county, while upon a visit to their
noble relatives, Lord and Lady B. in London, narrowly escaped being
burnt to death.  The devouring element almost destroyed the lower part
of the family mansion in Grosvenor-square, over which the lady and
gentleman slept, who had retired early to bed, and who by the accidental
return of Lord and Lady B. from a party, were awakened only just in time
to effect their retreat by means of a fire-escape, fortunately attached
to their bed-room window.  We are informed that the fire occurred in
consequence of the footmen, appointed to sit up for their master and
mistress, having fallen asleep, leaving a lighted candle in the room. 
Mr. and Mrs. Flybekin escaped, with the loss of all their clothes
but what they hurried on in the confusion, and were conveyed to a
neighbouring hotel by their noble relatives, where they received
succour for the night.”

But unhappily for the Flybekins, the naked truth at length forced its way into Devonshire, and the true statement of the matter was circulated as above related, and now handed down to their posterity.

Thus, the best version of their story only placed them, “out of the fire into the frying pan,” and the unlucky fire-escapes merely saved them from the fear of being badly burnt, in order that they might all the rest of their lives be well roasted!