“Come with me!” he exclaimed, as he darted after the flying vehicles. Up Broadway he went, with Bruce in swift pursuit, then turning into Twenty-fifth street, he followed on to Sixth avenue, arriving just as Captain Murphy had his hose attached to the hydrant and was ready to throw a stream wherever it might be needed. A crowd had collected in front of a building from whose upper window a volume of smoke issued. Chief Trask was standing on the sidewalk giving order to his men, and just as they appeared on the scene, one of the men from the engine company entered the hallway with a nozzle of the hose in his hand and disappeared upstairs, while a ladder from the truck was placed against the side of the building, and a fireman ran hastily up to see that there were no people imprisoned in the upper story.
But the fire proved a very slight one, and within a very few minutes the smoke had ceased to issue from the upper window, the hose had been replaced in the tender and the long ladder on the truck. And it was just at this moment that Chief Trask recognized Mr. Dewsnap and came forward, holding out his hand and saying: “I just sent a note up to your house, and you’ll probably find it there when you get back. If I’d known we were to get a call from this box, I wouldn’t have sent it, but would have taken my chances of seeing you here. You very seldom miss a fire that’s anywhere within your radius.”
“I got your note, and was just going down with that boy of yours to see you, when we met you coming up,” rejoined the old gentleman, “and so we concluded we’d follow you along and take in the fire, too. I’m very much obliged to you for your kind offer, and you may expect to see me with those gentlemen within a few days. I’ve told them both about the way we do things in the New York department, but I don’t think they believe it. Now I want to prove it to them because I am getting rather tired of the way some of these foreigners pretend to look down on us Americans.”
“Very well,” rejoined Chief Trask, “bring them down any time you feel like it, and you’ll find us ready. You needn’t take the trouble to notify me when you’re coming, except that I’d like to be there myself. If my men don’t get the truck out into the street in ten seconds, I want to know the reason why every time.”
“I want you to come up and call on me some afternoon,” said Mr. Dewsnap to Bruce, as the boy turned to go back with the men on the truck. “I’ve got a number of books relating to the fire department and some curiosities that ought to interest a boy of your age and inclinations. You’ll find me at home any afternoon between two and four, and I’m sure Chief Trask will give you permission to come.”
Then, with a pleasant smile and nod, the old gentleman climbed into the chief’s wagon, while Bruce scrambled up over the wheel of the big truck and rolled slowly back to quarters.
Chapter VI.
Bruce had always been fond of reading since his earliest childhood, and it was his habit, when not otherwise employed, to spend most of his time seated in the back room of the quarters reading whatever books or newspapers he could find there. These books and newspapers were contributed by different well-disposed people who, having more reading matter than they required, remembered the firemen, and distributed them along the different engine houses in the town. One morning, while the boy was engaged in this manner, a tall, well-built and military looking gentleman, who seemed to be fully seventy years of age, entered the quarters and inquired for the chief.
“He’s upstairs, sir, but I’ll call him down,” said Bruce, promptly rising and offering the old gentleman a chair. Then he went upstairs and a moment later the chief came down and quickly recognized in his visitor an acquaintance known as Mr. Samuel Dexter, who lived in an old-fashioned house in the northern part of the city.
Mr. Dexter told him that he had called simply to gratify his curiosity in regard to the fire department, and after the chief had shown him the different sorts of apparatus kept there, and explained the method of getting out quickly, his visitor asked him what they did for reading matter.