It was a grand sight—the engine, with its scarlet wheels, and its polished stack sending out a long trail of brilliant sparks like shooting stars, the two powerful black horses tearing furiously over the pavements, yet subject to the slightest word or touch of their driver, who sat behind them firmly braced against the foot-board, the reins taut as steel, and the gong sounding beneath without pause.
“Get out of the way here!” shouted a burly policeman, forcing his way through the crowd.
The men surged back, and nobody noticed the little barefooted figure who was hurled violently against the building. She uttered a faint cry, and held up one foot, as a lame spaniel might do. A young man with delicate clothes and a light cane, who had stopped on his way to the station to “see the fun,” had set his heavy boot on the little, shrinking foot. She might have got out of the way more quickly, but she must keep to the front to tell the firemen.
The engine thundered up to the box and stopped, hissing and smoking furiously. The black horses quivered and pawed the pavement, shaking white flecks of foam over their sleek bodies.
“Where’s the fire?” called the driver sharply.
“Blest if I know—” began one of the men addressed, but he was interrupted.
“Sure it’s on Summer Street, sir, ’most up to Washington, on the other side.”
It was a surprisingly small, shrill voice for such an important piece of information, but it sounded reliable. The driver knew that every moment now might mean the loss of thousands of dollars, and, giving his horses the rein, was galloping off up the street again, almost before Bridget’s words were out of her mouth. A few moments after, the panting engine and the distant shouts of the firemen told of the work they were doing.
Well, the block was saved. A few thousand dollars’ damage on goods fully insured was all. Next morning the papers, being somewhat hard pressed for news, gave “full particulars” of the fire.
“It was fortunate,” said the eloquent reporter, in closing his account, “that the fire was discovered by some passer-by, who promptly pulled in an alarm from box fifty-two. Five minutes later, and the loss must have been almost incalculable.”