Chapter XIV: A Night Ride on a Fire Engine

The comfort of Dick’s stay in the engine-house depended very largely upon how he took this laughter at his expense, and he was shrewd enough to know it. He had mistaken the noontime signal, when the correct city time is sent to every engine-house for a fire alarm, and the fun-loving firemen could not lose such a good chance to laugh at him.

There was no danger, though, that Dick would lose his temper, and so make himself the butt of countless other jokes. He enjoyed his mistake as much as any of them and laughed with the rest, and so began a pleasant acquaintance with the men that was an advantage to him in a business way, for they all had good stories to tell.

“Every house ought to have a pole like that,” he laughed; “it’s ever so much easier than coming downstairs.”

Returning to the third story, he went about with the chief to see the men’s sleeping-room and the big sitting-room on the second floor, where they amuse themselves with checkers, chess, dominoes, and newspapers and magazines.

“A fireman is always on duty, you know,” the chief explained. “Only one or two men go out to their meals at a time, so we are never left short-handed. At any moment a bad fire may break out, and we must be ready. For a big fire we have what we call second and third alarms. At a first alarm only four engines go to a fire. If I see when I reach the spot that it is likely to be a bad fire, I send in a second alarm, and that brings four more engines. If it is very dangerous, I send also a third alarm, and that calls four more; twelve in all. Besides these there is what we call the general alarm, 666, which calls every engine in the city--more than a hundred of them. But I hope we will never have occasion to use that.”

“Well, I’m sure to see how you work at a fire,” Dick said, “as I am to stay till I have a chance to go out with you.”

“You might possibly have to wait a day or two,” the chief answered; “but often we go out three or four times in a day and night.”

When Dick went downstairs again he discovered on one side of the big room a dial telegraph instrument with which the foreman communicated with headquarters; and on the slate that hung by it he read this message, which evidently had just been sent:--

“Richard Sumner has presented an order to remain here and accompany apparatus to fires. Is it genuine?”

“Ah, ha!” he laughed; “they’re not going to be caught napping with any forged order. I think it’s the most perfectly organized system I ever saw.”

“How do you get up steam so fast in the boiler?” he asked the foreman. “Of course you must be ready for work when you reach a fire.”

“I’ll show you,” the foreman replied. “To begin with, the boiler of the engine has two hundred and sixty flues, and that gives great heating surface. Then you see this pipe that comes up through the floor and fits over a corresponding pipe at the back of the engine? When the engine is backed in, the two pipes run together, and when it goes out they separate and automatic valves close them up.

“Well, that pipe runs down into the cellar and connects with a furnace there in which a fire is always kept burning. The hot water runs up into the boiler, so, as you will easily see, the water in the boiler is always hot. That is a great help in making steam quickly. The furnace alone gives heat enough to keep five pounds of steam pressure always on the boiler.

“Then we burn English cannel coal, at twenty dollars a ton, because it is full of oil and burns rapidly. The engine’s furnace is piled full of combustible wood soaked in oil, with a layer of cannel coal on top--always ready to start a quick fire. The engineer has a little torch made of tow fastened to a bit of wood, with a fusee stuck in the end. The fusee will not blow out in the hardest wind, and the instant the engine goes out the door the engineer strikes it against the wheel and touches off his fire. Inside of two minutes he has a hundred pounds of steam on.”

At that moment the battalion chief joined them.

“We do everything,” he said, “on the principle that a minute’s work at the beginning of a fire is worth more than an hour’s work after it has gained headway. We must be on hand quickly; and, as you see, we don’t waste much time.”

Throughout the afternoon and early evening the engine was manned five or six times, and every time Dick was promptly in his place; but it did not go out. When bedtime came, between nine and ten o’clock, the chief gave him some final instructions.

“And you must mind what I tell you,” he said, “or you’ll not get to the fire, if there is one.”

“I am used to obeying orders,” Dick replied.

“Very well then,” said the chief, “here is order number one. You see that brass handle around the back of the boiler? Hang on to that with both hands, for your life depends on it. At night when the streets are clean we go on a dead run, and turning the corners will throw you off your feet.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said Dick.

“Order number two. Keep your eye on the horses. If a horse falls, jump for your life; for the tender will be right behind you, and it will be on top of you and crush you in a second.”

“Order number three. Here is a fireman’s hat for you and an old coat. See, I hang them on the end of the brass handle, near where you will stand. You see every man has his hat and an old coat hung by his place on the engine or tender. We don’t wear uniform at night, except the hat. These are all hung up ready for work in case we go out. Now come up stairs till I put you to bed properly.”

“Here is your bed,” he continued when they were in the third-story room, “and here is a pair of rubber boots I can lend you. Take off your shoes and put these on; you’d never get into those shoes in time.”

“Am I to sleep in rubber boots?” Dick asked with a laugh.

“No; but put them on. That’s right. Now stuff the ends of your trowsers into the tops of the boots. So. Now, then, strip down your trowsers till the top part is all inside out, and pull off both boots and trowsers, leaving the ends of the trowsers still sticking in the boot-tops.

“That’s it; you’re doing famously. Now we stand the boots here by the side of the bed, with the trowsers skinned down partly over their legs, leaving a free passageway for a foot into each boot-leg. There! now you’ve gone to bed like a fireman.

“Do you see the reason for all this?” the chief asked. “When the tap of the bell wakes you, you spring out of bed, and down go your feet right into the boots. With the same movement you are inside your trowsers also, and you pull the trowsers up as you run to the pole. The hat and coat, being already on the engine, you put on whenever you get a chance. That is our secret of quick dressing. It is these little things that help us get the engine out of the house in ten seconds from the tap of the bell.

“Now one more thing,” he continued. “When you slide down the pole and land at the bottom, don’t stand there to look at the scenery but get out of the way. The man behind you will be right on top of you if you don’t move fast.”

Dick found it hard work to go to sleep with the prospect of that dreadful gong ringing at any moment; but at length he dropped off; and when he awoke he did not have to collect his thoughts, for the gong was saying,--

“Tap-tap!”

He had never put on boots and trowsers in a second and a half before, but he did it that time. He was not the last man at the pole, either; there were two or three behind him. He remembered the danger at the foot of the pole and sprang to his place on the engine. The engineer and his assistant were already there; the horses were in place; the driver was in his seat with the reins in his hands. The man stood by the big doors, ready to throw them open.

“Tap-tap!” the gong had already struck, and somebody on the tender had called out “Two!”

“Tap-tap-tap-tap!” said the gong.

“Four!” said the voice.

Two-four. Not one of Number Four’s alarms yet.

“Tap-tap!” said the gong.

“Two-four-two,” said the voice; but long before the words were finished the big doors flew open and out went the company with a rush; engine first, tender following. Out with a bound across the floor; with a heavy holding in as the engine swung into the street; with a mad, whirlwind dash down Liberty Street.

There was a whip in the socket, but the driver did not take it out. The horses were wild with excitement.

“Hi! hi! hi! hi!” the driver shouted; for the street was clear and he wanted their top speed. They seemed to Dick to be entirely beyond control already. “Hi! hi!” On they flew, faster and faster every moment.

Thick black smoke was pouring out of the funnel, and the tender was right behind. Dick kept his eye on the horses, remembering his orders. He breathed nothing but smoke and cinders, but no matter.

Excitement? Take all the horse races that ever were run, all the boat races that ever were rowed, all the Roman gladiatorial combats tossed in a heap; mix in a thousand bull fights and a year’s railroad accidents, a century of Presidential elections and a hundred wars in the East,--and you get a faint idea of the flash and fury of a night ride on a fire engine through the streets of New York. Dick felt the blood pumping in his veins.

“Hold fast!” the engineer shouted. And as the engine swung into Pearl Street at a terrific gait Dick’s feet flew out and nothing but his grip upon the brass bar saved him.

“Where is it?” he shouted to the engineer; no ordinary tone could have been heard in that din.

“Pearl above Fulton,” was the answer.

How cool the engineer was! and all the firemen, for that matter. This man was calmly testing his watercocks, while his assistant oiled the machinery. The steam-gauge stood at one hundred and five.

“Hi! hi! hi!” There was the fire bursting from the fourth-story windows of an old-fashioned brick warehouse, almost beside them; but there was no let-up in the speed till the last moment. Then the engine stopped “all at once,” as Dick said to himself; and the tender stopped close by a fire hydrant, and some of the men began to unwind part of the fifteen lengths, seven hundred and fifty feet, of hose it carried.

Number Four was the first engine on the spot, being nearest the fire; and even in his excitement Dick could not help but admire the beautiful system with which everything was done. The foreman of the first company to arrive was in charge of the fire till the battalion chief arrived in his wagon; and the battalion chief was in command till the chief of the whole department came.

But wonderfully few orders were given, because every man knew just what to do and did it. A pipe was run from the hydrant to the engine, and the hose was attached to the engine’s discharge pipe. Four men meanwhile were throwing their weight against the steel doors of the building; for the warehouse was provided with outer doors and shutters of steel.

But the doors would not yield, and out came the axes from the tender.

Crash! crash! Ah, how those big axes cut through the steel! In a few seconds the doors were cut away as if they had been made of pasteboard.

“Man the pipe!”

Dick had not been told what his duties were to be at an actual fire. But his blood was up; he was bound to do something, and seeing four men enter the doorway with the line of hose, he sprang forward and joined them in a scramble up the steep wooden stairways of the burning building.

As he passed through the doorway a long hook-and-ladder truck came dashing down Pearl Street.

Up they went with a rush to the top story, dragging the hose with them. There was hardly time to take a long breath before a stream of water was playing upon the fire. Through the windows Dick saw the ladders from the long truck, and in a minute more firemen of another company were cutting a hole through the roof and throwing in their own stream of water. The smoke was blinding, but the fire was soon under control.

When the order was given to “shut off Number Four,” Dick returned to the street, where he found the scene greatly changed. Hundreds of people had gathered, and the police had formed the “fire lines” to keep them back out of danger. Several more engines were in sight, and three long extension ladders reached the top of the building. Besides, there was a big wagon that he recognized as the property of the fire patrol; a wagon filled with rubber blankets, which the men spread over the goods in the lower stories to protect them from damage by water.

All these things were done so rapidly that Dick was bewildered. The time was not measured by minutes but by seconds. From the time of the first tap on the gong till Number Four reached the burning building, less than two hundred seconds passed. Then in fifty seconds more the first stream of water was playing upon the fire.

“I saw you going up with the hose,” the battalion chief said when they returned to the engine-house. “So you have had some experience as a fireman. Now the men go to work and clean the engine and make ready for another alarm. We may have another call like that at any moment--or a much worse one.”

Dick concluded that he had swallowed enough smoke and cinders to give him a clear idea of fire department work; “but I shall stick it out through the night,” he said. “I belong to the company at present; and if the engine goes out again, I go with her.”

There were no more calls that took the engine out that night, and when he went home in time for breakfast he knew that he had material for one of his best articles. But writing it occupied the whole day, and the novel had to stand.

“Now I hope they’ll let me have a week without any more interruptions,” he said to himself next day when he took up a handful of his latest pages and read them over to start in the right vein. “I am making as much money as I did on salary, but I should rather lose a little money than be interrupted so often. If I could just have a month to myself, I’d soon finish the book.”

His wish was not quite gratified, but almost. He had days at a time to go on with his work, and the interruptions were brief. Steadily the heap of manuscript grew, and nearer and nearer the end approached.

“Now, Dick, you must stop and rest,” Mrs. Sumner said to him one day, entering the parlor when he had accidentally left the door unlocked. They all laughed at his habit of locking the door, Dick as well as the rest. “But it makes me feel so much more secure. I don’t like to feel that anybody can suddenly walk in and bother me,” he said.

“You must stop and rest,” Mrs. Sumner said. “You’ve been writing and writing and writing till you’re as pale as a ghost, and I’m sure you don’t eat anything. Do just look at that pile of pages you’ve written! I believe it grows an inch or two thicker every day, Dick.”

“Give me a week more, mother,” he replied, “and I’ll take all the rest you like. Just one week more, and the great book will be finished. I don’t know how it’s going to turn out, whether it will go or not; but it will be a relief to have it finished, at any rate.”

“Go!” his mother exclaimed; “what’s the use of talking that way, Dick? Of course it will go. Everything you’ve ever written, almost, has gone, and why shouldn’t this? The best publisher in the land will be only too glad to get it, with your name at the top.”

“Oh, I suppose they’d make a grand scramble for it if they knew anything about it!” Dick laughed. “They’d be rushing up here with checks and greenbacks till I’d have to keep a clerk to count them. But seriously, mother,”--and he got up and put his arm lovingly around his mother’s waist,--“do you know why I am so anxious to write a successful novel?”

“Why, to make you rich and famous, I suppose,” Mrs. Sumner answered, looking proudly up into his face.

“I want to make some money for my sweetheart, mother dear,” Dick said. “And you are the only sweetheart I ever had or ever expect to have. Some day Florrie will be leaving us, and she and Darling will have a house of their own in the city. Then if I have the money and don’t have to be at the office every day, my little sweetheart and I can have a snug little cottage out of town somewhere (in Russellville, for instance), with a lawn in front and a garden behind, and honeysuckle climbing over the piazza. Then I can write, write, write, all day, as you put it. I don’t really believe you like living in a flat any better than I do, little sweetheart.”

“O Dick!” His mother’s head was on his shoulder now, and her voice was choked with tears. “I’ve never liked it as well as the old house, but I wouldn’t have said so for the world. But to think of going back to Russellville and attending my own church again! It’s never seemed like home in these big city churches, Dick; and I do so like to have a yard to walk about in. And that’s what my boy has been working so hard for. O Dick, Dick, what a good son you are! But you’re not growing tired of newspaper work, are you, Dick?”

“Tired of it!” Dick exclaimed; “why it’s meat and drink to me, mother. I think I should wilt and wither if I didn’t do some reporting. But if I can do it occasionally, and at the same time be able to write and sell novels, you see how nicely everything will go with us. I may be making a mistake; nobody may like my book.”

“Don’t talk that way, Dick,” his mother said. “You know that everybody will like it. And I’m afraid you are nearer right than you imagine about Florrie. I’m afraid that she and Darling will soon be leaving us.”

“All the more haste then for the novel,” Dick laughed. “Let me have another hour at it this afternoon, and then I’ll take a rest till after supper.”

Day and night, almost, he continued to struggle with the book; for it was nothing less than a struggle. To write the story was comparatively easy; if it had been only a long story, he would have finished it quickly enough. But a novel is more than a long story. He must develop the characters of his heroes and heroines, and develop them in such a way that every incident and every conversation advanced the plot.

When at length it was finished he began to have more doubts about it than he had felt while he was actually at work. Somehow the bright points that he had had in mind did not appear so bright when he saw them on paper. Some of the best of them he had omitted entirely; they were clear enough in his mind, but they did not get into the manuscript.

“I don’t quite know what to make of it, Darling, now it’s done,” he said; and Darling noticed a shade of worry in his face. “I can’t tell for the life of me whether it is good for anything or not.”

“Of course you can’t,” Darling answered. “No writer can form a just opinion of his own work while it is fresh in his mind. He knows what he intended to do and say, but whether he really has said and done those things on paper is beyond his comprehension till the thing cools off. I don’t pretend to be much of a writer myself, but I am acquainted with some famous authors and that is what they tell me. The only way to judge fairly of your own manuscript is to bury it in the bottom of a deep trunk for a year or two, till you have forgotten all about it. By that time the characters and the incidents are all new to you, and you can see the weak points and strengthen them.”

“Ah, if I only could do that!” Dick exclaimed. “But that is possible only for the millionaires who write for fun or fame. A man who writes for money cannot afford to do it--at least, not at the start. You see I have no hesitation in saying that I write for money. Other men use their brains in great commercial enterprises for money; you use yours in the service of the Transport for money; Mr. Harding uses his in editing the paper for money; why should not I use mine in writing novels for money? I think it is perfectly legitimate.”

“I agree with you,” Darling laughed. “It is perfectly legitimate to write novels for money; the thing is to get the money. You must give the public something they want before you can get their money. But I think it is just as well for you that you can’t afford to let your manuscript lie for a year before you try to sell it. My honest opinion is, Dick, that if you were to let that book lie by for a year and then read it, you would wonder how you could possibly have written anything quite so bad. Mind you, I say this without knowing anything about your novel. I say it on general principles. That is the experience of most writers.”

“It is a very discouraging outlook!” Dick exclaimed.

“Not at all!” Darling asserted. “On the contrary, it is a sure sign of progress. If you keep on writing for a year, you will know much more about novels and about literature in general than you know now. You will judge your early work by higher standards. When a writer looks at his last year’s work and sees how bad it was, it is a strong indication that he is doing better work this year, and that he will do still better next year.”

“I have put my heart and soul into this book, Darling,” Dick burst out. “That is Besant’s advice to young novelists, you know, and I have followed it. ‘Drain yourself dry,’ he says, in substance; ‘more heart and soul will come to you in time for the next one.’ I think I have done the best I am capable of.”

“Well, if you are going to throw Besant at me,” Darling retorted, “I will give you some more of him: ‘Always watch how it is looking from before the footlights,’ he says. That is, see how it appears to the audience--to the reader. You know what your meaning is, but do you make it clear and entertaining to the reader? The probabilities are that you don’t in a first novel.

“No; I am not trying to discourage you,” he went on, seeing the disappointed look on Dick’s face. “But I know you have your hopes set very high on this book, and I want to prepare you for what may happen. You must remember that not every good newspaper writer can write a good novel. Besides, how many writers have made a success of a first novel? You don’t need half your fingers to count them on. However, it is done, and the publishers will have it read by men who are good judges, and they will form a cool-headed--perhaps I might say a cool-blooded--opinion of it. That is where the publisher is the young writer’s best friend, preventing him often from making a fool of himself in print. It will probably go through the hands of several readers, for I think it will hardly be bad enough to be condemned positively by the first man. But now that you have your article manufactured, what are you going to do with it? Where is your market?”

“I have written to Brounlow & Company, the publishers,” Dick replied, “(they publish The Illustrated Weekly, you know, so they are familiar with my work), telling them what I have, and asking them to examine it. And they have answered that they will be happy to see it. That was the proper way to go at it, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, that is the usual process.”

“And the manuscript is going to them to-morrow, and then we’ll see what we’ll see.”

With the novel out of the house Dick gave all his time to newspaper work again, and it seemed so easy and so pleasant after the long daily tasks he had been doing! It was profitable too, for with his fifteen dollars a column he made more money than he had made on salary.

He could not reasonably expect to hear from the novel within three or four weeks, but at the expiration of a fortnight he began to watch his daily letters for one of the familiar envelopes of Brounlow & Company. And at length it came, and Dick punished his own impatience by looking for some time at the outside before he tore it open. There was no telling what grand offer for the manuscript the letter might contain.

“We have read your novel with much pleasure,” the letter said, “and we regret that we do not find it suited to our present needs. The manuscript is returned this day by registered mail.”

Dick did not gasp for breath when he read it, or fall helplessly back into a chair, but he was terribly disappointed. To be sure, there were hundreds of other publishers, some of whom might want it; but for Brounlow & Company to refuse it he considered a bad sign.

Refuse it? Of course that was what it meant. Dick had heard of such letters before. A merchant says bluntly that he doesn’t want the goods that are offered him; but a publisher, more polite, reads everything offered with a pleasure little short of delight, and is torn with poignant regret over what he is compelled to send back.

For the next few months the postoffice department derived considerable revenue from Dick’s novel. After the Brounlow incident he sent it to Whitelow & Company, who read it with interest and returned it by registered mail. Pinklow & Company, Greenlow & Company, Blacklow & Company,--all the primary colors and many of the tints took it under consideration; some read it with interest and some with pleasure, but they were all of one mind about returning it by registered mail.

“It’s a dead, flat failure, old fellow!” the unsuccessful author said to Darling when he concluded to waste no more postage stamps.

“It’s a pretty strong verdict against it, that’s a fact,” Darling admitted. “Suppose you let me read it some day before you plant it in the bottom of your trunk.”

“You’re a lucky fellow, Dick,” was Darling’s opinion after the reading. “If anybody had published that, you’d never have stopped kicking yourself. It’s as different from your newspaper work as day is from night--worse I mean. Occasionally there is a gleam of intellect in it, too. I should hardly fill up my trunk with it, unless you’re in need of ballast.”

Florrie’s was the only dissenting voice. “There’s a conspiracy against you, Dick,” she insisted. “You have done something or other to offend those publishers, or their readers are jealous of your splendid work and don’t intend to give you a chance. It’s perfectly shameful the way they treat you!”

But Florrie had not read the novel.