ave to balance up 'Old Nanc,'" said his
father laughingly, when he heard Bruce's reason for wanting another
extinguisher, "here's a light oxygen-acetylene tank equipment with a blow
torch I've been using around the mill. I'm going to get a new one of
larger capacity, and if you polish this up it will look mighty
business-like, I tell you.

"These torches are being adopted by the city fire departments too. You
see they are composed of two tanks, one filled with oxygen and the other
with acetylene gas. These gases both flow through the same opening in
the torch and unite before they strike the air. If you touch a match to
the end of the torch, _presto_, you have a thin blue flame, so hot that
it will cut through the hardest steel. The flame gives off a heat as
high as 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit; think of that! It literally burns its
way through the toughest metal and does the job before you can say
'scat.' The city fire departments use them to burn the hinges off iron
doors and window shutters in big warehouse fires. Do you boys want it?
It may come in handy, you know."

"Want it! You bet we do," shouted Jiminy Gordon eagerly.

"Just the stuff," recommended Romper Ryan, who had been inspecting the
apparatus, "handy and compact. Doesn't weigh more than a hundred pounds.
Two of us could handle it in fine shape. We certainly _would_ like to
have it."

"All right," acquiesced Mr. Clifford, "it's yours."

The good-natured manufacturer also gave the boys a set of old fire pails
that needed fresh coats of paint, and several lengths of old but
serviceable fire hose, not to mention a number of rusty fire hatchets,
crowbars and pike poles.

"How about ladders?" said Mr. Clifford as the boys were about to depart.

"Gee, we never thought of 'em," said Bruce, surprised at such an
omission. Then as he considered the capacity of "Old Nanc," he
continued: "But if we had them we wouldn't know how to carry them;
we--you see, we can't afford to overload the auto or she will never be
able to get started for a fire."

"Ho, ho, that's right. She'd be a regular tortoise," said Mr. Clifford.
"But why don't you make a couple of scaling ladders? I'll have the top
hooks forged for you if you'll build the ladders. They'll be light and
serviceable and you can work up a mighty spectacular drill with them."

"Great, we'll do it," said Bruce. Then he added, "perhaps we _will_ have
a real fire department after all."

"Old Nanc"