age. The signs of this custom are indeed still to be seen in the
extinguishers attached to the railings in front of many houses, which
served for the footmen to extinguish their lights.

Meantime the Flybekins slept on, not dreaming of the honour intended
them, and were as sound asleep as Duncan in Macbeth's castle, when a
long thundering rap at the door startled them amid their slumbers. The
diminutive, bandy footman had gone home with the coachman and horses,
the landlady and her family had followed the example of the lodgers; and
before any one could rise to unbar and open the door, to ascertain the
cause of such an unusual alarm, a second louder and longer rap had been
made upon it, and which awoke the sleepers to an instinctive idea that
the house was on fire; a notion confirmed by the strong glare of red
light reflected against their windows, and illuminating the apartment,
as the footmen impatiently shook thousands of sparks from the flambeaux.

As Bonaparte observed upon another occasion, "From the sublime to the
ridiculous is but one step." So it was with the Flybekins. From the most
sublime repose they hurried into the ridiculous fire-escapes, in the
full conviction that the lower part of the house was on fire; and
without waiting to dress, or inquire into the real state of affairs,
they gave the signal-word "Now!" and both descended in all the freshness
of their fears to the pavement before the door!

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