steeple-chasing. It feels like driving to destruction--so wild and so
reckless is it. And yet it is not reckless in the strict sense of that
word; for there is a stern _need-be_ in the case. Every _moment_ (not
to mention minutes or hours) is of the utmost importance in the progress
of a fire. Fire smoulders and creeps at first, it may be, but when it
has got the mastery, and bursts into flames, it flashes to its work and
completes it quickly. At such times, one moment of time lost may
involve thousands of pounds--ay, and many human lives! This is well
known to those whose profession it is to fight the flames. Hence the
union of apparent mad desperation, with cool, quiet self-possession in
their proceedings. When firemen can work in silence they do so. No
unnecessary word is uttered, no voice is needlessly raised. Like the
movements of some beautiful steam-engine, which, with oiled pistons,
cranks, and levers, does its unobtrusive work in its own little chamber
in comparative stillness, yet with a power that would tear and rend to
pieces buildings and machinery, so the firemen sometimes bend to their
work quietly, though with mind and muscles strung to the utmost point of
tension. At other times, like the roaring locomotive crashing through a
tunnel or past a station, their course is a tumultuous rush, amid a
storm of shouting and gesticulation.

So was it on the present occasion. Had the fire been distant, they
would have had to commence their gallop somewhat leisurely, for fear of
breaking down the horses; but it was not far off--not much more than a
couple of miles--so they dashed round the corner of their own street at
a brisk trot, and swept into Oxford Street. Here they broke into a
gallop, and here the noise of their progress began, for the great
thoroughfare was crowded with vehicles and pedestrians, many of whom
were retiring from the theatres and music-halls, and other places of
entertainment.

To pass through such a crowd without coming into collision with anything
required not only the most dexterous driving, but rendered it necessary
that some of the men on the engine should stand up and shout, or rather
roar incessantly, as they whirled along, clearing everything out of
their way, and narrowly escaping innumerable crashes by a mere
hairbreadth.

The men, as we said before, having been sailors, seemed to shout with
the memory of the boatswain strong upon them, for their tones were
pitched in