The Third Alarm: A Story of the New York Fire Department

by James L. Ford

From the steamer Mr. Van Kuren and his family went directly to a large and fashionable hotel on Broadway, intending to remain there until their own house could be repaired and put in thorough order. The children continued their studies under the direction of their tutor and an English governess, who had accompanied them home from London, and every afternoon went out to walk in the streets. Sometimes Harry and Mr. Reed enjoyed long strolls along the river front, where the boy never wearied of looking at the great ships and little fishing sloops, as they lay at the docks, and sometimes the two went down into the poorer portions of the town, where Mr. Reed pointed out to him the habitations of different races of people, and explained to him their curious modes of living.

Sometimes Laura accompanied them, when they walked along the principal avenues or through Central Park, but as a general thing she went out with her governess, and sometimes invited some young girl of her own age to accompany her. She was walking in this way one afternoon, talking to a richly dressed young girl, and accompanied by the prim-looking governess, when her young companion drew her attention to the fact that some one was trying to attract her attention. Laura looked up hastily and beheld Bruce Decker standing with his hat in his hand and a rosy flush on his cheeks almost in front of her. The governess was looking in wonder at the presuming young man, and the young girl beside her was beginning to laugh, for to tell the truth, Bruce presented an appearance that was not at all like that of little Victor Dufait.

“How do you do, I did not know you were back from Europe,” began the boy. But to his amazement Laura, who had always treated him in a most friendly manner, simply stared him in the face, bowed to him very coldly, and then walked on with her eyes turned in another direction, and a look in her face that was anything but pleasant or cordial. And as she passed on she realized that the boy was standing stock still on the pavement behind her, amazed beyond expression at the way in which he had been treated. She knew, moreover, that what with her annoyance at her companion’s sneers, and her fear lest the English governess should tell her father of the chance meeting, she had treated Bruce with a degree of harshness, which she never intended, and she would have given almost anything—at least it seemed so to her at that moment—to have been able to live the past few minutes over again.

It is no easy task to describe Bruce Decker’s feelings, as he stood in the middle of the pavement on Fifth Avenue, and watched the retreating form of the young girl, whose friendship he had once prized so highly. His cheeks grew redder and redder, as he thought of the glance she had given him, and the insolence of her manner. Then he glanced down on his clothes, and his hands reddened and hardened with toil, and said to himself, “Well, I suppose I’m not stylish enough to suit her now that she’s been across the water, and mixed up with all sorts of foreign people.” It seemed very hard to the boy, however, that he should be despised just because he did not wear fashionable clothes, and he said to himself with some bitterness of spirit, “I suppose I could rig myself up in fine style for less than a hundred dollars, and be as good a dude as any of them.”

It was with this feeling in his heart that he walked slowly away, and then—for his brain did not stop working merely because of some trifling rebuff—it occurred to him that if there was only a hundred dollars difference between him and a dude, the obstacle was not an impossible one to surmount, and that a few years of hard work would convert him into a very superior quality of dude, and would thus enable him to regain the friendship and esteem which he was positive Miss Van Kuren once entertained for him. With this cheerful view of the case he lifted his head bravely, and walked on toward the truck quarters with swift and resolute steps. He said nothing to his friend Charles Weyman in regard to his chance meeting. In fact, he did all he could to forget it himself, but he had been too deeply wounded to put all recollection of the young girl’s coldness to him aside, and the memory of that chance meeting rankled in his breast for many weeks.

Chapter XXXIV.

One cold, dreary, windy evening, the tall, dark, bearded man left the office on the East side, where he was known as “Scar-faced Charlie,” and turned his face in the direction of the fine mansion in the upper part of the city, where he was known to the servants, the tradespeople, and a few of the neighbors as “Samuel Dexter,” a relative of the kindly old gentleman who owned the house. Passing through the broad gate and along the winding road, he emerged into an open space in front of the mansion, and saw to his surprise that lights were gleaming through the windows of the elder Mr. Dexter’s library, a room which was seldom opened during the owner’s absence.

The bearded man had been away for two or three days, and, thinking that the servants had taken advantage of his absence, to make use of an apartment into which he seldom penetrated himself, he quietly let himself in at the front door, and stepping across the hall, threw open the door of his uncle’s study, intending to administer a severe rebuke to whomever he might find within.

But the angry words died away unuttered on his lips, and he started back with a look of amazement and chagrin, as Mr. Dexter, Senior, rose from an easy chair by the fire and came forward to greet him.

“Why, my dear uncle, I had no idea that you were in this country,” exclaimed the new comer, as he recovered himself sufficiently to grasp the hand that was extended to him, and assume something that resembled at least a pleased expression of countenance.