The Agent-General’s Adventure.

Temuka Leader, Issue 3744, 25 May 1901, Page 3

The Agent-General’s Adventure.

In the spring the housemaid’s fancy ought to turn to thoughts of sweeps. In many households, however, the services of those necessary but unattractive purgers of the fireplace are frequently not called into p!:iy until a conflagration in the chimney has led to the expenditure of much salt and the customary visit to the Police Court. The Ageut General a few days before Easter received a rather startling warning at his house in Cornwall Gardens against placing too much reliance on the soothing assurances invariably given to intending tenants that all the chimneys have been recently swept The lire suddenly roared up the chimney of the room in which he was sitting with such a whirlwind of flame that it looke ! for a few minutes as it the house would catch fire. Flames leaped out of the ventilator high up the wall into the room, and while Mr Beeves’s whole attention was concentrated on subduing the blaze Mrs Beeves went out into the street and gave the alarm. By the time the fire brigade clattered up, Mr Beeves had got the lire completely under. To make assurance doubly sure, however, a couple of firemen, entirely on their own initiative, climbed on to the roof and poured buckets of water down the chimney. Unfortunately, chimneys have a strong family resemblance, and the firemen's cold cascade was as misplaced as their zeal. The deluge descended not down the chimney which had already paled its ineffectual fire, but down that of the house next door, in the drawing-room of which an old lady was quietly reading by her fireside. Like a bolt from the blue the sudden cataract, carrying with it the winter’s soot, splashed overwhelmingly, and never ceased until it had thoroughly drenched the dame and her turkey carpet alike, and, in the words of Chaucer, “ full sooty was her bower.” The lady’s retort courteous would obviously have been to heap coals of fire on the heads of the firemen who had so unceremoniously poured water over hers. It is, however, whispered in Victoria Street that for a while the relations of the ncigebours were somewhat strained, despite the absolute blamelessness of the Agent-General in the matter. —Lyttelton Times.