ent I have ever received. Your sin
will be forgiven for your sincere flattery of so humble an admirer as
myself."

Americans claim to be superior to us in respect of three things--their
facility in travelling, their fire system, and their after-dinner
speaking. One of these I will not question, and that is the Fire
Brigade. It is necessary for America to excel in this respect, for with
their huge warehouses and stores overstocked with inflammable goods fire
would destroy their cities as Chicago was destroyed, were they not so
wonderfully prompt and efficient with their engines and appliances.

When I arrived in the States I only presented two of the very numerous
letters of introduction with which I was supplied. One was to the Chief
of Police in New York, and the other was to the Captain of the Fire
Brigade. The latter I met, when I arrived at the station at which he is
located, just coming out in ordinary clothes, for it was his night off;
but such is the pride taken by the Fire Brigade in their work that
whatever engagement he was going to keep was abandoned, and he was at my
service until I had seen everything it was possible to see in connection
with the famous Fire Brigade.

[Illustration: FIRE!]

As I was speaking to the Captain in the engine-room I noticed a couple
of horses standing there. One of them was a grey mare with a most
cunning look, and as the Captain was informing me that "she had done
continuous work here for some years," she gave me an artful wink of
confirmation. Just at that moment the alarm bell suddenly vibrated, and
before you could say Jack Robinson (even if you wanted to), seemingly by
magic but in reality by electricity, the halters fell from the horses'
heads, and to my surprise, without any one being near them they rushed
to their places at either side of the shaft of the engine. There were
manholes in the ceiling, through which brass rods were suspended
vertically. Down these slid half-dressed men, who seemed to turn a
somersault into their clothes during the descent on to the engine, the
harness suspended above the horses dropped on to their backs, and in an
instant they were in the street, the engine manned, its fire ablaze, and
the horses alive to the stiff job they had before them of reaching the
fire in an incredibly short space of time. But hardly had they taken the
first leap from one of the boulders over the cavities with which New
York streets abound to another, than a whist