"Well, Amateur, you've spread yourself, eh? Been swelling all the morning till your head is so big that you need to borrow a new cap?"
"There's no danger of that yet a while, Mr. Davis. I'll wait till I see how I get along at headquarters before puffin' myself out very much."
"That's a good idea, Amateur, though at the same time I believe you'll pull through in great shape, providing you hang on as you've done since I knew you. Now, if it so be you've tended to all your business and are ready to duf into the work, we'll mosey along toward Sixty-seventh Street."
"The sooner I get to work the quicker we'll know whether the folks up there are goin' to let me stay," Seth replied, and with words expressive of kindly cheer and friendly wishes ringing in his ears, the Amateur set out on this his first real step toward a position in the Department.
"I don't want them as you'll meet at headquarters to think you're a dummy, Amateur, and it's in my mind to give you a little outline, so to speak, of this 'ere school, after which there'll be no need of your showing ignorance by asking questions. In the first place it ain't counted on that this 'ere branch of the service is to educate anybody and everybody that may come along. It's for such men as are admitted to the Department on trial, 'probationary firemen' chiefly; but the old hands have had a deal of good out of it.
"This plan was started long about '83 for no other reason than to show the men who were then in the service how to use the scaling ladder which had just been introduced, and the idea seemed to work so well that it gradually grew, kind of swelled out, so to speak, till it became a reg'lar school. First off, before the new headquarters was built, the city hired an old sugar warehouse on One Hundred and Fifty-eighth Street and North River, where the men were shown how to use scaling ladders and a life net, and I've been there when one class counted up sixty scholars, all of us old hands at the business. Remember this, Amateur, you'll never be too old to go to school, leastways that's what I've found.
"After the new headquarters building was opened in '87 the sugar warehouse was given up, and we firemen had what you might almost call a college. There's a yard at the back of the building nigh on to a hundred feet square, which is put up in such shape that water can be used the same as you would at a fire, and here drills go on like this, for instance: An alarm is sent out for a certain company when they least expect it, and the men find themselves called into headquarters to show what they can do. All that you're going to see, lad, and talking about getting points, why, you can learn more there in one exhibition drill than you could at forty fires, 'cause you're understanding just how the thing is going to be done.
"You'll find when one of these unexpected drills comes off that the engine is run into the yard, hose coupled on to the hydrant, dragged up to the top of the building, water started and shut off, ladders used, and in fact the whole business gone through the same as if a hundred lives were in danger."
"Do the men really work as hard there as they do at a fire?" Seth asked.
"Do they, Amateur? Well, now, you can be mighty certain they do, 'cause it's owing to what they show at such times that gives them their rating. Now, for instance, Ninety-four's company is in the first grade; Eighty-six, that we bucked up against on that storage warehouse, is in the second grade; and there ain't a great many third grade nowadays, 'cause the men are drilled too well. And here's a point I want you to understand, Amateur: In case some man comes along and tries to tell you that the Department in this city or that is better than what we've got here, stick straight up for the fact that the New York Fire Department heads the world, and you won't be a grain away from the truth. Taking it all in all I'm free to say, open and above board, that you can't find a Department anywhere that can beat this, and I'm reckoning pretty strong that you wouldn't find one to equal us, taking all things into consideration.