"Now, we'll suppose you was old enough, and stout enough, and plucky enough, and knew enough to pass a civil-service and a physical examination for admission to the Department. You wouldn't be put into regular service, but sent up to headquarters, where we're going now, and drilled in the yard, raising ladders, tossing 'em 'round, setting 'em up, and keeping at that kind of work till you could handle one the same's you might a knife or fork. Now, considering the fact that the lightest of 'em weighs twenty and the heaviest sixty-five pounds, with a length of from fourteen to twenty feet, you can see that you've got to be pretty nimble before getting through the first lesson, eh?
"Then we'll allow you've satisfied them as are giving the lesson. You'll be set at climbing up to the first window to start with; after you can do that, to the second, and so on till you've got to the top of the building by aid of the scaling ladders. It ain't such a mighty easy thing when you come to do it yourself as it looks while you're watching somebody else; about the time you're half-way up the hair on your head will come pretty nigh to standing on end; but bless you, Amateur, a man soon gets over that, till shinning outside of a building don't seem more'n child's play.
"Then there's the drill of building a chain—making a line of ladders from the roof to the street—and getting from the upper window out over the cornice. Straddling sills is another lesson you'll have to learn, till you can get astride of one, and by holding on with your knees, work as handy as on the ground. Standing on sills; working the life-line; climbing crosswise so's to step from one window and go to the next story on a slant, instead of straight up; using the life net by jumping down, or holding it for others to leap into—and if it so chances that you are ever set to holding one, Amateur, my boy, you'll find it ain't child's play. I've heard it said that when a man weighing one hundred and fifty pounds jumps from the sixth floor of a building, he strikes the net with a force of nigh on to eighteen hundred pounds, and I tell you them as are holding it have to keep scratching."
"Do you reckon I'll be allowed to practise with the men, Mr. Davis?" Seth asked as the driver paused an instant.
"I'm counting on it, lad; but don't make up your mind it'll be right away. We of Ninety-four's company believe we know what kind of a boy you are, because we've tried you, so to speak; but up here where we're going they've got only our word for it, and won't count very much on that till they've found it out for themselves. It may take a long time, and then again it mayn't; but every boy, whatever business he goes into, is bound to prove himself before he's thought to be of much account. It'll be the same at headquarters. Turn to, Amateur, the same as you've done since we knew you, and before a year goes by I reckon on seeing you in the drill."
"Are the men always practising?"
"Not every minute of the time, you know, because it comes precious nigh being hard work; but you can count on their doing all a man ought to do in the twelve hours. When it's storming, or too cold to work in the yard, you'll find them 'ere grown-up scholars in the gymnasium on the fifth floor, at work coupling or uncoupling hose; learning how to fight cellar fires, or practising with the tin-cutters for opening roofs. They're told about battering-rams, axes, hooks, and, finally, everything that we use, until the man who graduates up at headquarters is fit to handle a company all by himself, save, of course, that he lacks experience. Now, if it so happens that one don't learn quick enough, or shows he hasn't got a good head for the business, he's switched right off, and that ends his chance of getting into the Department. Of course kids are never taken on, and it ain't held out to you that you're going there on probation. We've got a job for you as a boy in the building, that's all, but with what little influence Ninety-four's men can use, and some thrown in from the other companies that we're friendly with, the idea is to slip you through on the sly, so to speak. If you please them at headquarters there'll be no voice raised agin your practising now and again with the others, and then is the time that everything depends on you.
"You've run to fires for the sake of getting points; but never had a chance to see whether you could carry them out or not. Now the opportunity is coming; if it's in you to do the work, why, when you're sizable we shan't have any trouble in getting you taken on probation, providing, of course, you can pass both examinations, and about that we've got to talk later. I don't want you to think a fireman is a regular idiot when it comes to book-learning. The older hands of us may be 'way off on such things; but them as goes through the civil-service examination have got to be pretty well posted, an' I'm counting on your working into some night-school."
Seth had listened attentively to the old driver's words; but there was a cloud on his face when mention was made of the fact that a fireman must have a certain amount of book-learning.
"I don't know hardly anythin' at all, Mr. Davis," he said in a mournful tone.