e of 'em. Shows how people get rattled in a
fire. Why, if they'd only kept their hall door shut--well, they didn't,
and there they were, all three at the window, without hardly any clothes
on, and the flames close behind 'em.

"We got up on the top floor of the Union Square Hotel, the chief and I,
about ten feet away along the same wall, and by leaning out of our
windows we could tell 'em what to do. It was a case of ropes and swing
across to us, but it isn't every man can make a rope fast right when a
fire is hurrying him, especially a sick man, or mebbe it was a poor rope
he had. Anyhow, when the nurse came out of that window, you might say
tumbled out (you see, they made her go first), she just fell like that
much dead weight, scared, you know, and when the rope tightened it
snapped, and down she went, seven stories--killed her bang.

"The chief saw that would never do, so we went up on the roof and threw
over more rope. It was clothes-line, the only thing handy, but I doubled
it to make sure. And with that we got the husband and wife across all
safe, for now, you see, we could lift 'em out easy, without such a
terrible jerk on the rope. That was the chief's idea."

"Yes," said I, "but you helped. What's your name?"

"No, no," he smiled; "never mind me. I'm nobody. Let the chief have it
all." And then he went on with the story, which interested me mainly as
showing the kind of loyalty one finds among these firemen. Each man will
tell of another man's achievements, not of his own. You could never find
out what Bill Brown did from Brown himself.

The clock ticked on, some service calls rang on the telephone, and once
the driver bounded up in the middle of a word and stood with coat half
off, in strained attention, counting the strokes of the gong. No, it
wasn't for them. They'd go, though, on the second call. Second calls
usually came within twenty minutes of the first, so we'd soon see.
Meantime, he told me about a fireman known as "Crazy" Banta.

"Talk about daredevils!" said he, "this man Banta beat the town. Why,
I've known him to go up on a house with a line of men where they had to
cross the ridge of a slate roof--you know, where the two sides slant up
to a point. Well, the other men would straddle along careful, one leg on
each side, but when Banta came he'd walk across straight up, just like
he was down on the street. That's why we called him 'Crazy'--he'd do
such crazy things.

"And funny? Well, sir, he