This beautiful thing, entrancing to the eye, dashed past, and the protoplasmic immigrant stepped into the wake of it with his broad, enraptured, uncomprehending grin. And so stepping, stepped into the path of No. 99's flying hose–cart, with John Byrnes gripping, with arms of steel, the reins over the plunging backs of Erebus and Joe.
The unwritten constitutional code of the fireman has no exceptions or amendments. It is a simple thing—as simple as the rule of three. There was the heedless unit in the right of way; there was the hose–cart and the iron pillar of the elevated railroad.
John Byrnes swung all his weight and muscle on the left rein. The team and cart swerved that way and crashed like a torpedo into the pillar. The men on the cart went flying like skittles. The driver's strap burst, the pillar rang with the shock, and John Byrnes fell on the car track with a broken shoulder twenty feet away, while Erebus—beautiful, raven–black, best–loved Erebus—lay whickering in his harness with a broken leg.
In consideration for the feelings of Engine Company No. 99 the details will be lightly touched. The company does not like to be reminded of that day. There was a great crowd, and hurry calls were sent in; and while the ambulance gong was clearing the way the men of No. 99 heard the crack of the S. P. C. A. agent's pistol, and turned their heads away, not daring to look toward Erebus again.
When the firemen got back to the engine–house they found that one of them was dragging by the collar the cause of their desolation and grief. They set it in the middle of the floor and gathered grimly about it. Through its whiskers the calamitous object chattered effervescently and waved its hands.
«Sounds like a seidlitz powder,» said Mike Dowling, disgustedly, «and it makes me sicker than one. Call that a man! — that hoss was worth a steamer full of such two–legged animals. It's a immigrant—that's what it is.»
«Look at the doctor's chalk mark on its coat,» said Reilly, the desk man. «It's just landed. It must be a kind of a Dago or a Hun or one of them Finns, I guess. That's the kind of truck that Europe unloads onto us.»
«Think of a thing like that getting in the way and laying John up in hospital and spoiling the best fire team in the city,» groaned another fireman. «It ought to be taken down to the dock and drowned.»
«Somebody go around and get Sloviski,» suggested the engine driver, «and let's see what nation is responsible for this conglomeration of hair and head noises.»
Sloviski kept a delicatessen store around the corner on Third avenue, and was reputed to be a linguist.