"Are you all safe?" was the eager question from below.
"Safe from what?" asked Nolan, from above.
"Why, the mob, the rioters. Didn't they try to clean you out last night?"
"Did they?" asked Nolan turning to his silent young friend the fireman. "Was that what those fellows were thinking of that you chased off the hill? Why, maybe it was! But here, what we came down to find out was about Shiner's boy. How's he?"
Then the rescuers looked at one another in some bewilderment. The leaders were friends of Cawker. They hardly knew Nolan. They did not know his companion the fireman.
"D'you mean to tell us you've had no trouble up there?" was the eager demand.
"Why, lots of it, four days ago—'t least I had," answered Nolan, grimly, "but nothin' worth mention last night."
"Why, man," cried the manager of the White Eagle, "there were a thousand riotous Bohemians and Dagoes, and Lord knows what all, went up there last night to burn those buildings over your heads and you with 'em."
"Why, cert'nly," said Nolan, with preternatural gravity and a wink at his comrade, who was doing his utmost to keep a straight face. "It must have been some of those fellows you blew in about ten o'clock. But say," he broke off, as though this matter bored him, "what we want to know is about Shiner's boy. They didn't seem to have time to talk."
By which time it dawned upon the officials present that Nolan was having fun with them, and though the spokesmen were nettled, many others, with genuine American sense of humor, felt that he couldn't be blamed.