summer evening, the
men sat and stood about the open door beside the trim engines and
_materiel_ of their profession, chatting heartily as men are won't to do
when in high health and spirits. There were new faces among them, but
there were also several that had long been familiar there. The stalwart
form of Joe Dashwood was there, so little altered by time that there was
nothing about him to tell that he was passing the period of middle-age,
save a few grey hairs that mingled here and there with the dark curls on
his temples. Bob Clazie was there also, but he had not stood the trials
of his profession so well as Joe--probably his constitution was not so
strong. A disagreeable short cough harassed him, though he made light
of it. Frequent scorching, smoking, and partial suffocation had
increased his wrinkles and rendered his eyelids permanently red.
Nevertheless, although nearly fifty years old, Bob Clazie was still one
of the best men in the Brigade.

Joe Dashwood wore a pair of brass epaulettes on his shoulders, which
indicated that he had attained to the highest rank in the service, short
of the chief command.

He was giving directions to one of the younger men of the force, when a
tall strapping young man, with a plain but open and singularly pleasing
countenance entered, and going up to him shook him warmly by the hand.

"Well, Bob, what's the news? you seem excited this evening," said Joe.

"So I am, Joe; and with good reason too, for several pleasant things
have happened to-day. In the first place, my friend and patron--"

"That's the old gentleman with the ruddy face and the bald head?"
interrupted Joe.

"Yes, and with the kind heart. Don't ever omit the kind heart, Joe, in
your description of him, else you'll only have painted half the
portrait."

"Well, but the kind heart ain't quite so visible at first sight as the
ruddy face and bald head, you know."

"Perhaps not; but if you watched him long enough to see him _act_, you'd
perceive the kind heart as plain as if it hung at his button-hole, and
beat like a sixty-horse-power steam-engine _outside_ his ribs instead of
inside," said the strapping young man with quite a glow of enthusiasm.
"Oh, if you could only see how that old gentleman labours, and strives,
and wears himself out, in his desire to rescue what they call our Street
Arabs, you couldn't help loving him as I do. But I'm wandering from the
pleasant things I've got to tell about. Throu