There was the civil-service law to help, and we were of old devoted to the spirit and even to the letter of that, though once the letter of that law compelled us to an injustice, as the letter of any law must do now and then. We had reorganized the police department on a metropolitan basis, and had done the same with the fire department, and in this department there were accordingly created three new positions of battalion chiefs, for which captains were eligible. The oldest ranking captain in the department was Dick Lawler, by everyone in the department from the chief down conceded to be the best fireman in the department, with a long and untarnished record of devoted duty and quiet, unassuming bravery. And it was his natural ambition to round out that career as one of the chiefs. The examining board held a written test, and as Lawler was more accomplished in extinguishing, or, as his comrades expressed it, in fighting fire, and much more comfortable and at home on the roof of a burning building than he was at a desk with a pen in his hand, he did not do very well. When, for instance, he read a long hypothetical question, setting forth certain conditions at a fire and asking the applicant where, under such circumstances, he would lay the hose, Lawler wrote down as his answer, “Where it would do the most good,” and on that answer the board marked him zero. The board marked him zero on so many answers indeed that the net result was almost zero, and he failed. It was a kind of tragedy, in its little way, as he stood in my office that morning on which he came to appeal from the board, with tears in his eyes. But the law was obdurate and I was helpless. But I did point out to the examining board the absurdity of such methods of testing a man’s ability, and after that they allowed a man’s record to count for fifty per cent. And it was not long until a vacancy occurred among the chiefs--and Lawler was appointed. XLVI