THE DEVOURING ELEMENT
Mr. Silverstone was gloomily considering whether he had not better blow out the lights in the New York One Price Clothing Store, and lock up for the night. Kerosene was fifteen cents a gallon, and not a customer had been in since supper-time. Business was “ofle, simbly ofle.”
The streets were empty. There were lights only in the barber shop where one patron was being lathered while two mandolins and a guitar gave a correct imitation of two house-flies and a bluebottle in Riley's where, in default of other occupation, Mr. Riley was counting up; in Oesterle's, where a hot discussion was going on as to whether Christopher Columbus was a Dutchman or a Dago, and in Miller's, where Tom Ball was telling Tony, who impassively wiped the perforated brass plate let into the top of the bar, that he, Tom Ball, “coul' lick em man ill Logan coun'y.”
Lamps shone in every parlor, where little girls labored with: “And one and two, three and one and two, three,” occasionally coming out to look at the clock to see if the hour was any nearer being up than it was five minutes ago. They also shone in sitting-rooms, where boys looked fiercely at “X2 +2Xy+y2,” mothers placidly darned stockings, and fathers, Weekly Examiner in hand, patiently struggled to disengage from “boiler-plate” and bogus news about people snatched from the jaws of death by the timely use of Dr. McKinnon's Healing Extract of Timothy and Red-top, items of real news, such as who was sick and what ailed them, who cut his foot with the ax while splitting stove-wood, and where the cake sale by the Rector's Aid of Grace P.E. would be held next week.
At the prayer-meeting, Uncle Billy Nicholson was giving in his experience and had just got to that part about: “Sometimes on the mountaintop, and sometimes in the valley, but still, nevertheless—” when, all of a sudden, something happened.
The mandolins stopped with a jerk. Mr. Riley stood tranced at: “And ten is thirty-five.” Mr. Ball was stricken dumb in the celebration of his own great physical powers. The crowd in Oesterle's forgot Columbus, and were as men beholding a ghost. The drowsy congregation sat up rigid, and Mr. Silverstone gave a guilty start. He had been thinking of that very thing!
The next instant, front doors were wrenched open, and the street echoed with the sound of windows being raised. Fathers and sons rushed out on the front porch, followed by little girls, to whom any excuse to stop practising was like a plank to a drowning man.
They had heard aright. Up by the Soldiers' Monument fell the clump of tired feet, and upon the air floated the wild alarm of—.
“FIRE! Pooh-ha! FIRE! Poof! FIRE!”
Mat King, the assistant chief, kicked off his slippers, and swiftly laced up his shoes, grabbed his speaking-trumpet and his helmet, and tore out of the house. If he could only get to the engine-house before Charley Lomax, the chief! But Charley was the lone customer in the barber's char. With the lather on one side of his face, he clapped on his hat and broke for the firebell, four doors below.