Well, I don't want
to see many people look as he did when you first got him out of the
house."
"Well, I don't know as I want to see many more fires where I live,"
said her nephew, as if with the wish to be a little more accurate.
Jerry asked Lemuel to watch Mrs. Harmon's goods while he went for a
carriage, and said sir to him. It seemed to Lemuel that this
respect, and Mrs. Harmon's unmerited praises, together with the doom
that was secretly upon him, would drive him wild.
XXIV.
The evening after the fire Mrs. Sewell sat talking it over with her
husband, in the light of the newspaper reports, which made very much
more of Lemuel's part in it than she liked. The reporters had
flattered the popular love of the heroic in using Mrs. Harmon's
version of his exploits, and represented him as having been most
efficient and daring throughout, and especially so in regard to the
Evanses.
"Well, that doesn't differ materially from what they told us
themselves," said Sewell.
"You know very well, David," retorted his wife, "that there couldn't
have been the least danger at any time; and when he helped her to
get Mr. Evans downstairs, the fire was nearly all out."
"Very well, then; he would have saved their lives if it had been
necessary. It was a case of potential heroism, that contained all
the elements of self-sacrifice.
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