and the Street.

Muggles ruminated over each and every experience--all new to him--and
kept his eyes open for the psychological moment when he would burst
asunder the bonds of conventionality and rise to the full measure of
his abilities. The Clanworthys had swung battle-axes and ridden
milk-white chargers into the thickest of the fray. His turn would come;
he felt it in his knee: then these unbelievers would be silenced.

His host interested him enormously, especially his masterful way of
handling his men. He himself had been elected foreman of Hose Carriage
No. 1 in the village near his father's country seat, and still held
that important office. His cape and fire-boots fitted him to a nicety,
and so did his helmet. No. 1 had been called out but once in its
history, and then to the relief of a barn which, having lost heart
before the rescuers reached it, had sunk to the ground in despair and
there covered itself with ashes. He had been criticised, he remembered,
much to his chagrin, for the way he had conducted the rescue party; but
it would never happen again. After this he would pattern his conduct
after Monteith, who seemed to accomplish by a nod and a wave of the
hand what he had split his throat in trying to enforce. He did not put
these thoughts into words; neither did he whisper them even in the ears
of Podvine or Monteith--the two men who understood him best and who
guyed him the least--especially Monteith, who never forgot that his
college chum was his guest. He confided them instead to Monteith's big,
red-faced foreman--half Canadian, part French, and the rest of him
Irish--who was another source of wonder. Muggles's inherent good humor
and willingness to oblige had made an impression on the lumber-boss and
he was always willing to answer any fool question the young New Yorker
asked--a privilege which he never extended to his comrades.

"What do I do when somepin' catches fire?" the boss replied to one of
Muggles's inquiries--they were sitting in the office alone, Bender and
little Billy having gone fishing with Jackson. "I'd blow that big
whistle ye see hooked to the safety, first. Ye never heard it?--well,
don't! It'll scare the life out o' ye. If the mill catches before we
can get the pumps to work it's all up with us. If the piles of lumber
git afire we kin save some of 'em if the wind's right; that's why we
stack up the sawed stuff in separate piles."

"What do you do first--squirt water on it?"

"