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on. Then the messenger came back and said that William Lane had not been at home.
As soon as the place was bearable for entry, I went in with the local policeman and the first thing we did was to stop those bells. Then we crept through the slush of the blackened rooms and made our way into the little perforating-room where the poor lad had been working and where the fire, they all said, had started. I still clung to the slender hope that he had not been there, but we found his body leaning back in a corner, a black cinder, shrunk to half its size. Only one foot was left with any likeness to human flesh, where it had been protected by the boot.
We lifted him out as tenderly as we could and laid him far away from the desolation where he had died. Then I had to go and tell his mother and father what had happened. They were already fearing it must be so, for they had heard nothing since the messenger had left them. There was nothing I could do except try to answer their questions and show a little of the sympathy I so wretchedly felt.
And when I got back there was still nothing I could do. The fire was quenched, half the people had crept away to their own homes and even the firemen were packing up their gear. Truly the thread of all our lives had been cut right across.
The next day was the first of several dreary days, in which we tried to measure what we had lost and how much we could rescue from the ruins — what chance we had of starting again. I won't dwell any further on this unhappy time, but will try to tell of the many gleams of sunshine which struggled through the gloom now and again and began to point the way to some recovery.
There was that wonderful gesture from a man I scarcely knew — I think I had only met him once. His name was Jordan and he lived with his family in one of the little houses just opposite the studio. He came up to me when I was looking at the wreck next morning and he said that he knew how a calamity like that might easily catch a man very short of money for a time. He said that he had two hundred and fifty pounds doing nothing at his bank and I could have it in a few minutes and that he could raise as much again in two or three days if I should need it. When I went home later and told my wife about it, we felt that things could not be finished when there were people like that to help. As it happened I did not need money but that does not alter the fact that this was a most amazing and heartening gesture.
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