out 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
the