e more air than we want." The mason and the
chimney-sweep followed the carpenter, who carried the hose with the
sprinkler, as quickly as he could, up the ladder steps. The others
brought buckets of cold water, the journeyman a pail of hot water to
pour over the cold to prevent its freezing.

At such moments he who remains calm inspires confidence; to the
self-possessed man of action others defer without question. The wooden
passage-way to the door was narrow, but through Apollonius'
intelligent directions room was immediately found for all. Next to
Apollonius stood the carpenter, then the sprinkler, then the mason.
The sprinkler was so turned that the two men had the levers before
them. Two strong men could work it. Behind the mason stood the
journeyman who was to pour hot water on the cold as often as was
necessary. Others performed the journeyman's previous duty; they
melted snow and ice and kept the water thus obtained in the watchman's
warm room so that it should not freeze again. Still others were ready
to serve as carriers and formed a sort of double line between roof and
watchman's room. While Apollonius was explaining to the carpenter and
mason, in rapid words and signs, his plan of action which they then
carried into effect, he had taken hold of the roof-ladder with his
right hand and was reaching out with his left toward the bolt of the
door. The workmen were all full of hope, but when the storm whistled
in through the opened door, tore the carpenter's cap from his head,
blew masses of fine snow against the beams, howled, rattled, and
blustered against the ridge of the roof, while flash after flash of
lightning broke through the dark opening, the bravest among them
wanted to withdraw his hand from the futile work. Apollonius had to
stand with his back to the door to get his breath. Then gripping the
lath-work above the door, with both hands, he bent his head back in
order to get a look at the roof from the outside. "It can still be
saved," he cried with an effort so that he could be heard above the
storm and the uninterrupted rolling of the thunder. He seized the tube
of the shorter hose, the lower end of which the carpenter had screwed
onto the sprinkler, and wound the upper part around his body. "When I
pull twice on the hose start the sprinkler; we'll save the church and
perhaps the town." With his right hand propped against the lath-work
he swung himself out of the door; in his left hand he held the light