"Why couldn't I black boots at odd times?" Seth asked, pleadingly.
"Because there won't be any 'odd times' in the first place, and secondly we're not minded to have it said we couldn't see you through. Can't you understand that we're looked on by them as are in the Department as your father, or guardeen, or something of that kind, and it's our own credit we're bound to uphold? How would it look for a fireman to be around blackin' boots? And that's what you are this very minute, even though you haven't had an appointment."
Then one member of the company after another gave his views on the subject, until it would have been rank ingratitude had Seth refused the generous proposition.
It was agreed to by all that a strict account should be kept of the amounts advanced, and he be allowed to repay the company at the earliest opportunity after he was under salary.
When this matter had been settled by Seth's promise to take such sums of money as he needed, and "look pleasant about it," the men discussed his future, and spoke of the time when he would be running with Ninety-four, until it did not require a very great stretch of the imagination for the boy to fancy himself already a member of the company.
On reaching Mrs. Hanson's he found his roommates awake, and grumbling because he had not returned sooner.
"I s'pose we shan't see very much of you now you're gettin' so high up in the Department, eh?" Dan said in a tone of ill-humor.
"You'll see me all my spare time, providin' you an' Bill still agree to go to school, 'cause I've got to duf into study in great shape now, an' we'll be together every evening."
"Got to do it now? What else has come up?"
"Mr. Fernald has put me right into the drill, an' I don't have to tackle the odd jobs any more."