HOW MR.

SCHNACKENBERGER AND JUNO CONDUCT THEMSELVES WHEN THE HOUSE BECOMES TOO HOT TO HOLD THEM.
Day was beginning to dawn, when a smoke, which forced its way through the door, and which grew every instant thicker and more oppressive, a second time summoned Mr.Schnackenberger from his bed.

As he threw open the door, such a volume of flames rolled in from the staircase--which was already on fire from top to bottom--that he saw there was no time to be lost: so he took his pipe, loaded it as quickly as possible, lighted it from the flames of the staircase, began smoking, and then, drawing on his pea-green coat and buckling on his sword, he put his head out of the window to see if there were any means of escape.

To leap right down upon the pavement seemed too hazardous; and the most judicious course, it struck him, would be to let himself down upon the Golden Sow, which was at no great depth below his window, and from this station to give the alarm.

Even this, however, could not be reached without a leap: Mr.
Schnackenberger attempted it; and, by means of his great talents for equilibristic exercises, he hit the mark so well, that he planted himself in the very saddle, as it were, upon the back of this respectable brute.