SEE NEWTON, RUTH E. Little firemen.

No night so cold or storm so great that Mrs. Presley was not present and with her own hands provide coffee and sandwiches for the tired and hungry firemen who had been heroically battling with the flames.

But the best troops can be appalled, and, on this memorable occasion, these celebrated firemen, from a variety of causes, became for a time, little more than passive spectators of the terrible scene.

The crowd of onlookers fled in terror, and they would have been burned alive had not two courageous firemen carried them out of the building.

Had they possessed the time, the young folks would have been glad to tell the curious firemen something about their aëroplanes.

How a man can be ground and twisted, and mauled, and stamped on by a reckless locomotive with a crazy engineer and a drunken fireman, rolled over by box cars, and walked on by elephants, and still live, is beyond me.

Dame Partington's effort to sweep back the incoming tide with a hair-broom promised better hopes of success; a brigade of energetic firemen would drain off Lake Superior in a much shorter space of time than Liberian colonization would remove one-third of the slave population.

He slept when he could, in snatches, with his clothes on, and now and then used an exhausted fireman's shovel On the steamy African coast the labor and watchfulness would have worn him out, but the cool Trade breeze was bracing.

"Now's your time, if you want to take a good mile," says the friendly fireman.

" The gallant firemen did all they could, but the store was doomed.

Many of us have protested vigorously that we wanted to become grimy, hard-working firemen for the sake of having to do with the "iron horse.

The wild demons of the Commune are capable of everything; an invention of incendiary firemen is quoted as an example of the diabolical genius which presided over the work of destruction; individuals wearing the fireman's uniform were seen to throw combustible liquids by means of pumps and pails on the burning houses, instead of aiding to extinguish the flames.

And after all, why should they get paid more than half the wage of plumbers or locomotive firemen?

Lister had sometimes disputed with Western railroad hands and marine firemen, but he thought the captain's remarks equaled the others' best efforts.

" Sorrel-top Simpson, a year younger than his brother, proved to be a most unfair fighter, and the good-natured fireman was compelled to interfere several times before the second of the Simpson clan lay on the ground and acknowledged defeat.

The plain artisan or the rough fireman, who faces the lead and iron like a man, is the truest representative we can show of the heroes of Crecy and Agincourt.

Examinations and licenses are now required in the several States of electricians, engineers, horse-shoers, mining foremen, elevator operators, plumbers, railroad employees, stationary firemen and engineers, and street railway employees, in addition to the trades enumerated on page 147.

* * Brave relics of the past are we, Old firemen, staunch and true, We're thinking now of days gone by

Fred and Charley felt mighty longings to run away from a danger great enough to frighten the redoubtable Simpson gang and the valorous fireman, but they could not desert their comrade.

Their conduct was in the highest degree heroic; they rushed into danger, for the sake of preserving lives and property, with a coolness and bravery which put to shame the labors of the boldest firemen; occasionally they would come to the place of rendezvous to reassure their teacher, and then in a moment they were away again, laboring as zealously as ever, and utterly refusing any compensation, however urgently pressed upon them.

Don't allow any one to be a better fireman than yourself.

I don't think that the brave fireman paid any attention to this warning, for an instant later the same voice said, "He's planting his ladder against the third story.