at night and called me again at morning in one unbroken round of pleasure and suspense, nothing befell me in either worth remark.  The man or the hour had not yet come; but some day, I think, a boat shall put off from the Queen’s ferry, fraught with a dear cargo, and some frosty night a horseman, on a tragic errand, rattle with his whip upon the green shutters at the inn at Burford.

    —­R.L.  STEVENSON, A Gossip on Romance.

    FROM “MIDNIGHT IN LONDON"

Clang!  Clang!  Clang! the fire-bells!  Bing!  Bing!  Bing! the alarm!  In an instant quiet turns to uproar—­an outburst of noise, excitement, clamor—­bedlam broke loose; Bing!  Bing!  Bing!  Rattle, clash and clatter.  Open fly the doors; brave men mount their boxes.  Bing!  Bing!  Bing!  They’re off!  The horses tear down the street like mad.  Bing!  Bing!  Bing! goes the gong!

    “Get out of the track!  The engines are coming!  For God’s sake,
    snatch that child from the road!”

On, on, wildly, resolutely, madly fly the steeds.  Bing!  Bing! the gong.  Away dash the horses on the wings of fevered fury.  On whirls the machine, down streets, around corners, up this avenue and across that one, out into the very bowels of darkness, whiffing, wheezing, shooting a million sparks from the stack, paving the path of startled night with a galaxy of stars.  Over the house-tops to the north, a volcanic burst of flame shoots out, belching with blinding effect.  The sky is ablaze.  A tenement house is burning.  Five hundred souls are in peril.  Merciful Heaven!  Spare the victims!  Are the engines coming?  Yes, here they are, dashing down the street.  Look! the horses ride upon the wind; eyes bulging like balls of fire; nostrils wide open.  A palpitating billow of fire, rolling, plunging, bounding rising, falling, swelling, heaving, and with mad passion bursting its red-hot sides asunder, reaching out its arms, encircling, squeezing, grabbing up, swallowing everything before it with the hot, greedy mouth of an appalling monster.

    How the horses dash around the corner!  Animal instinct say you? 
    Aye, more.  Brute reason.

    “Up the ladders, men!”

The towering building is buried in bloated banks of savage, biting elements.  Forked tongues dart out and in, dodge here and there, up and down, and wind their cutting edges around every object.  A crash, a dull, explosive sound, and a puff of smoke leaps out.  At the highest point upon the roof stands a dark figure in a desperate strait, the hands making frantic gestures, the arms swinging wildly—­and then the body shoots off into frightful space, plunging upon the pavement with a revolting thud.  The man’s arm strikes a bystander as he darts down.  The crowd shudders, sways, and utters a low murmur of pity and horror.  The faint-hearted lookers-on hide their faces.  One woman swoons away.

    “Poor fellow!  Dead!” exclaims a laborer, as he looks upon the
    man’s body.