your first run! If that ain't being a mascot for Ninety-four
I don't know what you will call it."

Then there was no time for congratulations or further discussion
regarding the matter, for the men had work to do which could not be
delayed, and Seth was about to follow Joe Black when 'Lish Davis
shouted:

"Come back here, Amateur! Come back! This is no time for you to be
gettin' points when you're wearing the first decent suit of clothes you
ever owned. Get alongside and behave yourself. I didn't allow you was to
do any work when the captain let you in on this trick."

Under other circumstances Seth would have been grievously disappointed
at being thus commanded to remain where he could see little or nothing
of what was being done; but now he was so elated at the victory won that
all else seemed but slight by comparison.

"I s'pose you'd have gone in there if you was wearing the finest coat
ever made, eh?" the driver asked gravely, and Seth replied with another
question:

"Wouldn't you, sir?"

"What I'd do don't cut any figger, Amateur. It's my business to go in
there, but not yours yet a while. When the time comes that you're bound
to step up with the foremost, I'm expecting to see you there, and
wouldn't say a word that might hold you back. Now you're playing the
gentleman, and you'll stay with me; besides, it ain't going to turn out
anything after all. A curtain or some such flummery is blazing. It can't
be much more."

In this surmise 'Lish Davis was correct.

Within ten minutes after Ninety-four was ready for work word came to
"shut off," and the men set about disconnecting the hose.

So slight had been the fire that only two members of the company were
detailed to do the overhauling--that, is to thoroughly go through the
building from top to bottom to make certain no spark had been left which
might be fanned into a flame--and the remainder of the men were ordered
back to the house.

"It's what we may call a howling success, this first run of yours,
Amateur," 'Lish Davis said as he drove leisurely homeward. "We've beat
'em all out, had little work to do, and it wasn't much more than good
practice, with a precious fine record at the bottom of it. But don't you
get puffed up thinking everything is going your way just 'cause you've
started in easy and slick."

"There's no reason why I should be puffed up, Mr. Davis, except that
I've had a chance to do what I've been longin' for--and that is to go
out wi