So I know — from the big fire we saw here one night — my dentist, he was right in the midst of all the flames, and they were all falling all around. I went through this door here into my little room in the back and saw these things burst up in flame, one after the other. Jim’s house didn’t lose one shingle, and I can see the tree now — the eucalyptus tree that was completely scorched on one side, outside of his property, and yet not on the inside — of all trees, eucalyptus, full of oil, that goes up entirely, burnt on one side and not the other. And the only thing that he could have lost — someone, not thinking that Jim was in the city, that he and his wife might have been away, with the fire sweeping up the hills in spite of all the fire departments — went into the home, and he heard a door slam, and then he thought he heard footsteps, and when he rushed into the dining room — someone, like so many people, they’re like you, they live off others, they think that way — someone, seeing this enormous flame, knowing that no one would be in the house, rushed in, took Jim’s lovely rug, one of his choice orientals, and put all of Jim’s silver into it, and he was just about ready to escape when, hearing the footsteps he heard, a friend of Jim’s came uninvited and saved all the silver. So Jim did not lose one shoe, not a scrap, he lost nothing — and that’s Jim, living this way. He isn’t here tonight.775 ¶27