thing in life seems to go wrong at times," muttered the Captain,
as he and the satellite lay-to at one of these crossings.

"Yes, it's coorious, ain't it, sir," said Gillie, "an' at other times
everything seems to go right--don't it, sir?"

"True, my lad, that's a better view to take of it," returned the
Captain, cheerfully, "come, we'll heave ahead."

As they were "heaving" along in silence, the rattle and noise around
them being unsuited to conversation, they suddenly became aware that the
ordinary din of the Strand swelled into a furious roar. Gillie was half
way up a lamp-post in an instant! from which elevated position he looked
down on the Captain, and said--

"A ingine!"

"What sort of a ingine, my lad?"

"A fire! hooray!" shouted Gillie, with glittering eyes and flushed
countenance, "look out, Cappen, keep close 'longside o' me, under the
lee o' the lamp-post. It's not a bad buffer, though never quite a sure
one, bein' carried clean away sometimes by the wheels w'en there's a bad
driver."

As he spoke, the most intense excitement was manifested in the crowded
thoroughfare. Whips were flourished, cabmen shouted, horses reared,
vehicles of all kinds scattered right and left even although there had
seemed almost a "block" two seconds before. Timid foot passengers
rushed into shops, bold ones mounted steps and kerb-stones, or stood on
tip-toe, and the Captain, towering over the crowd, saw the gleam of
brass helmets as the charioteer clove his way through the swaying mass.

There is something powerfully exciting to most minds in the sight of men
rushing into violent action, especially when the action may possibly
involve life and death. The natural excitement aroused in the Captain's
breast was increased by the deep bass nautical roar that met his ear.
Every man in the London fire-brigade is, or used to be, a picked
man-of-war's-man, and the shouting necessary in such a thoroughfare to
make people get out of the way was not only tremendous but unceasing.
It was as though a dozen mad "bo's'ns," capped with brazen war-helmets,
had been let loose on London society, through which they tore at full
gallop behind three powerful horses on a hissing and smoking monster of
brass and iron. A bomb shell from a twenty-five-ton gun could scarce
have cut a lane more effectually. The Captain took off his hat and
cheered in sympathy. The satellite almost dropped from the lamp-post
with excess of feeling. The crash