Coming from a ball one night,a young man fresh from the University,he saw that a fire had broken out in the Judengasse, and that people were standing about helpless and confused without a leader; he immediately jumped from his carriage, and, full dressed as he was, in silk stockings and pumps, organized on the spot a fire-brigade, which averted a dangerous conflagration.

*** Owing to scarcity of petrol several fire-brigades have had again to resort to horses.

In addition to this, a fire-brigade was formed, with Joseph West, a steady, quiet, active young seaman, as its captain, and their stations in the event of fire were fixed beforehand; also, a hole was kept constantly open in the ice alongside to insure at all times a sufficient supply of water.

And here, just at the moment when the work of devastation was almost accomplished, came the Malsham fire-engine rattling along gaily through the dewy morning, and the Malsham amateur fire-brigade, a very juvenile corps as yet, eager to cover itself with laurels, but more careful in the adjustment of its costume than was quite consistent with the desperate nature of its duty.

In the evening, after a service in honour of St. John has been performed in the church, the clergy, the mayor, the municipal authorities, the rural police, and the fire-brigade march in procession to the bonfire, accompanied by the inhabitants and a crowd of idlers drawn by curiosity from the neighbouring villages.

When it has died down into a huge heap of glowing embers and grey ashes, every one carries home a charred stick or some cinders; and the fire-brigade, playing their hose on what remains, extinguishes the smouldering fire.

And the local fire-brigade was called up, and they pumped on me for ten minutes, and then wrote "Inextinguishable" in their note-books, and went home; and all the time I couldn't move, because my arms were stuck tight in a coat two sizes too small for me.