To understand how naturally this most unexpected dénouement came about, we must recall what the English people had been accustomed to. In London fires were rare and trifling. Buildings were low, built of brick with tile roofs. Open grates afforded the means of cooking and of warming sufficiently for their climate. Every tenant of a building who called in the fire department was fined five pounds, which encouraged careful habits. The apparatus itself was something quite ridiculous. It consisted of little hand-engines, worked by about a dozen men. On the side of a corner building occasionally one saw painted a distance in feet and inches. This meant that by measuring this distance from this corner out into the street and digging a little into the macadam pavement, a connection would be found with the water-main. From this the water was permitted to flow gently into an india-rubber saucer some 6 feet in diameter spread on the ground. Out of this saucer the engine drew its water for a feeble little stream. Mr. Lee’s engine, with Worthington duplex pump, was, on its completion, exhibited before a large company of invited guests, principally officials of the fire department and prominent engineers. The engine maintained a vertical column of water, delivered from a much larger nozzle than had ever before been used in England, and considerably over 100 feet high. There was also a corresponding column of sparks from the chimney of the steam-pump. The exhibition was made late in the afternoon of a short winter day, and before it was over the coming darkness showed the column of incandescent cinders to the best advantage. The few Americans there enjoyed this miniature Vesuvius hugely. The Englishmen were frightened out of their wits. Their unanimous verdict was that the engine would evidently put out a fire, half a dozen of them for that matter, but it would kindle twenty. And this where the engine had been pushed to its utmost, and had not kindled one fire. Easton, Amos & Sons instantly decided that they could never sell a steam fire-engine under Mr. Lee’s management, and they discharged him the next morning.