le from the Captain stopped
them. It was a false alarm given for my edification. Before they could
get back into the engine-house I was conducted by the Captain into the
dormitory, where I concealed myself under a bed. Without a grumble the
men came up and literally walked out of their clothes, for boots, pants
and everything are all one piece. They opened these carefully and laid
them ready by the side of their beds, and in a few minutes were all
snoring fast asleep.

The Captain gave a slight tap on the floor as a signal for another false
alarm. At the first sound of the bell, with one bound the men were out
of bed, in another into their combinations, and in a third they were
going head over heels down the holes in the floor, just as mice would
disappear down theirs at the sight of a cat, and in a second or two I
heard again the rumbling of the engine over the pavement.

We escaped before the men were back again to bed, but hardly had I been
shown the completeness of everything, and gone into details which I need
not repeat here, and had another wink from the old grey mare, which
plainly said, "Ah, I knew those alarms were false," when her two ears
went up like a flash as she sprang under her harness once more, the
other animal as quickly by her side. The third alarm was a genuine one,
and she knew it. The Captain and I, as soon as the alarm was given,
rushed in the direction of the fire, but we had not got to the first
corner before the old mare and her companion flew past, and I just had
time to notice that the men were completing their toilet as they were
hurled by. Quickly followed the officer of the night in his one-horse
trap, and by the time we got to the fire, which was only round a block
of buildings, an exhibition of fire engines and appliances was collected
there which beggars description. The water tower, a huge affair seventy
or eighty feet high, built up like a crane, which shoots water on to
the top of the burning building; so also are the hook and ladder
brigade, the men with the jumping net--in fact, everything is at hand.
This is accounted for by the fact that a policeman at any corner, when
giving the alarm of a fire, touches an electric button or turns a
handle, which gives the signal at every fire station, unloosing the
horses and putting everything into motion at once.

[Illustration: THE ALARM.]

The one weak point in the whole system is that the alarms are not
isolated, which means that eve