A Hidden Fire.  
In the afternoon of the following day Willie set off to the City in quest of Mr Thomas Tippet. Having to pass the King Street fire station, he resolved to look in on his brother.
 
The folding-doors of the engine-house were wide open, and the engine itself, clean and business-like, with its brass-work polished bright, stood ready for instant action. Two of the firemen were conversing at the open door, while several others could be seen lounging about inside. In one of the former Willie recognised the strong man who had collared him on a well-remembered occasion.
 
“Please, sir,” said Willie, going up to him, “is Frank Willders inside?”
 
“Why, youngster,” said Dale, laying his hand on Willie’s head, “ain’t you the boy that pulled our bell for a lark the other night?”
 
“Yes, sir, I am; but you let me off, you know, so I hope you won’t bear me ill-will now.”
 
“That depends on how you behave in future,” said Dale with a laugh; “but what d’you want with Frank Willders?”
 
“I want to see him. He’s my brother.”
 
“Oh, indeed! You’ll find him inside.”
 
Willie entered the place with feelings of interest, for his respect for firemen had increased greatly since he had witnessed their recent doings at the Beverly Square fire.
 
He found his brother writing at the little desk that stood in the window, while five or six of his comrades were chatting by the fire, and a group in a corner were playing draughts, and spinning yarns of their old experiences. All assisted in loading the air with tobacco-smoke.
 
The round cloth caps worn by the men gave them a much more sailor-like and much less fireman-like appearance than the helmets, which, with their respective hatchets, hung on the walls, rendering the apartment somewhat like a cavalry guard-room. This change in the head-piece, and the removal of the hatchet, was the only alteration in their costume in what may be styled “times of peace.” In other respects they were at all times accoutred, and in readiness to commence instant battle with the flames.
 
“Hallo, Blazes! how are ye?” said Willie, touching his brother on the shoulder.
 
“That you, Willie?” said Frank, without looking up from his work. “Where away now?”
 
“Come to tell ye there’s a fire,” said Willie, with a serious look.
 
“Eh? what d’ye mean?” asked Frank, looking at his brother, as if he half believed he was in earnest.
 
“I mean what I say—a fire here,” said Willie, solemnly striking his breast with his clenched fist, “here in Heart Street, Buzzum Square, ragin’ like fury, and all the ingins o’ the fire brigade, includin’ the float, couldn’t put it out, no, nor even so much as squeanch it!”
 
“Then it’s of no use our turning out, I suppose?” said Frank with a smile, as he wiped his pen; “what set it alight, lad?”
 
“A wax doll with flaxen hair and blue eyes,” answered Willie; “them’s the things as has all along done for me. When I was a boy I falled in love with a noo wax doll every other day. Not that I ever owned one myself; I only took a squint at ’em in toy-shop winders, and they always had flaxen hair and blue peepers. Now that I’ve become a man, I’ve bin an’ falled in love with a livin’ wax doll, an’ she’s got flaxen hair an’ blue eyes; moreover, she draws.”
 
“Draws—boy! what does she draw—corks?” inquires Frank.
 
“No!” replied Willie, with a look of supreme contempt; “nothin’ so low; she draws faces an’ pictures like—like—a schoolmaster, and,” added Willie, with a sigh, “she’s bin an’ drawed all the spirit out o’ this here buzzum.”
 
“She must have left a good lot o’ combustible matter behind, however, if there’s such a fire raging in it. Who may this pretty fire-raiser be?”
 
“Her name is Emma Ward, and she b’longs to a Miss Tippet, to whom she’s related somehow, but I don’t know where she got her, nor who’s her parents. This same Miss Tippet is some sort of a relation o’ Mr Auberly, who sent me to her with a note, and she has sent me with another note to her brother near London Bridge, who, I s’pose, will send me with another note to somebody else, so I’m on my way down to see him. I thought I’d look in to ask after you in passin’, and cheer you on to dooty.”
 
A violent fit of somewhat noisy coughing from one of the men at the fireplace attracted Willie’s attention at this point in the conversation.
 
“Wot a noisy feller you are, Corney,” remarked one of the men.
 
“Faix,” retorted Corney, “it’s noisy you’d be too av ye had the cowld in yer chist that I have. Sure, if ye had bin out five times in wan night as I wos on Widsenday last, wid the branch to howld in a smoke as ’ud choke Baxmore hisself (an’ it’s well known he can stand a’most anything), not to spake o’ the hose bu’stin’ right betune me two feet.”
 
“Come, come, Paddy,” said Dale, interrupting; “don’t try to choke us, now; you know very well that one of the fires was only a cut-away affair; two were chimneys, and one was a false alarm.”
 
“True for ye!” cried Corney, who had a tendency to become irascible in argument, or while defending himself; “true for ye, Mister Dale, but they was alarms for all that, false or thrue, was they not now? Anyhow they alarmed me out o’ me bed five times in a night as cowld as the polar ragions, and the last time was a raale case o’ two flats burnt out, an’ four hours’ work in iced wather.”
 
There was a general laugh at this point, followed by several coughs and sneezes, for the men were all more or less afflicted with colds, owing to the severity of the weather and the frequency of the fires that had occurred at that time.
 
“There’s some of us can sing chorus to Corney,” observed one of the group. “I never saw such weather; and it seems to me that the worse the weather the more the fires, as if they got ’em up a purpose to kill us.”
 
“Bill Moxey!” cried another, “you’re always givin’ out some truism with a face like Solomon.”
 
“Well, Jack Williams,” retorted Moxey, “it’s more than I can say of you, for you never say anything worth listenin’ to, and you couldn’t look like Solomon if you was to try ever so much.—You’re too stoopid for that.”
 
“I say, lads,” cried Frank Willders, “what d’ye say to send along to the doctor for another bottle o’ cough mixture, same as the first?”
 
This proposal was received with a general laugh.
 
“He’ll not send us more o’ that tipple, you may depend,” said Williams.
 
“No, not av we wos dyin’,” said Corney, with a grin.
 
“What was it?” asked Williams.
 
“Didn’t you hear about it?” inquired Moxey. “Oh, to be sure not; you were in hospital after you got run over by the Baker Street engine. Tell him about it, Corney. It............