This matter settled, and a joyous meeting having taken place between the four schoolmates, Captains Beach and Winthrop, brother officers now and ex-Columbiads, affably supervising, the next thing was to follow up the trail of Desmond's statements to Shorty, and this duty was intrusted to Keating. An odd feature with the old fire department was the alliance, offensive and defensive, which existed among certain companies, in contradistinction to the bitter rivalries which were inevitable. In the long-continued feud between Big Six and Manhattan Eight whole communities were involved. Political societies and clubs took sides with one or the other, and rows innumerable went on for years. Downtown companies, generally at odds with their neighbors, swore eternal friendship with some up-town organization which "ran" in lower districts. Marion 9 and Lady Washington 40 "lay" within three blocks of each other in the lower Fifth Fire District, but did duty, the former in the Fourth and Fifth, the latter in the Sixth and Seventh; turning out, of course, for all fires within a few blocks of their respective stations; and these two companies were on terms of very distant and dignified reserve. Away up-town, in like manner, were Lexington 7 and Pacific 28, both of which answered alarms from the Fifth District, both of which ran down Third Avenue to the Bowery in so doing, and as a consequence, time and again met and raced every inch of the way. The long run from Twenty-seventh Street to the Cooper Institute or beyond would almost exhaust their own men, but by the time they got far down-town there were swarms of allies to man the drag-ropes, 9's men with No. 7, 40's lively lads with 28, and, counting on this old alliance, Keating called on Desmond to redeem his promise to Shorty and tell what he knew about the school or its scholars, and Desmond's story was what boys of a later generation would have called "a corker."