"Fire! Fire! Turn out, everybody! Fire! Fire!"
This cry, coming like a clarion call, at midnight, awoke the inhabitants of the peaceful little New England village of Lakeville.
"Fire! Fire!"
Heads were thrust out of hastily-raised windows. Men and women looked up and down the street, and then glanced around to detect the reddening in the sky that would indicate where the blaze was. Timid women began sniffing suspiciously, to learn if it was their own homes which, unsuspectingly, had become ignited.