truggled to disengage from
"boiler-plate" and bogus news about people snatched from the jaws of
death by the timely use of Dr. McKinnon's Healing Extract of Timothy and
Red-top, items of real news, such as who was sick and what ailed them,
who cut his foot with the ax while splitting stove-wood, and where the
cake sale by the Rector's Aid of Grace P.E. would be held next week.

At the prayer-meeting, Uncle Billy Nicholson was giving in his
experience and had just got to that part about: "Sometimes on
the mountaintop, and sometimes in the valley, but still,
nevertheless--" when, all of a sudden, something happened.

The mandolins stopped with a jerk. Mr. Riley stood tranced at: "And ten
is thirty-five." Mr. Ball was stricken dumb in the celebration of his
own great physical powers. The crowd in Oesterle's forgot Columbus, and
were as men beholding a ghost. The drowsy congregation sat up rigid, and
Mr. Silverstone gave a guilty start. He had been thinking of that very
thing!

The next instant, front doors were wrenched open, and the street echoed
with the sound of windows being raised. Fathers and sons rushed out on
the front porch, followed by little girls, to whom any excuse to stop
practising was like a plank to a drowning man.

They had heard aright. Up by the Soldiers' Monument fell the clump of
tired feet, and upon the air floated the wild alarm of--.

"FIRE! Pooh-ha! FIRE! Poof! FIRE!"

Mat King, the assistant chief, kicked off his slippers, and swiftly
laced up his shoes, grabbed his speaking-trumpet and his helmet, and
tore out of the house. If he could only get to the engine-house before
Charley Lomax, the chief! But Charley was the lone customer in the
barber's char. With the lather on one side of his face, he clapped on
his hat and broke for the firebell, four doors below.

"Where's it at?"

"FIRE! Pooh-ha! FIRE! Sm-poohl Fi--(gulp)--FIRE!"

"It's Linc Hoover. Hay, Linc! Where's the fire?"

"FIRE! Pooh-ha! FIRE! ha, ha! FIRE!"

"Hay, Linc! Where's it at? Tell me and I'll run. Hay! Where's it at?"

"FIRE! Swope's be--(gulp) Swope's barn. FIRE!"

"Which Swope? Henry or the old man?"

"FIRE! Pooh! J. K. Swope. Whoo-ha, whooh-ha! Out out on West End Avenue.
Poof!"

The news thus being passed, the fresher runners scampered ahead,
bawling: "FOY-URRR' FOY-URRR! and Linc, the hero, slowed down, gasping
for breath and spitting cotton.

"Whew!" he whistled, gustily, his arms dropping and his whole fr