"Wait a moment," answers the head-master, ever deliberate, and away he goes, long striding, the First Latin, despite Beach's effort, tearing after him. Then Beach follows the tide. The house in flames is not just back of them, but near enough to prove a source of tremendous interest and excitement, if not of danger. It faces on Twenty-fifth Street, just beyond the stable, and backs up into the grape-vined, fence-crossed rectangle at the back. Smoke in thick volumes is pouring out of the back windows. A tongue of flame licks out under the narrow gallery at the rear of the main floor as Halsey forces his way through a mob of shouting small boys to the open window. The First Latin comes tumbling after him, shoving Meeker aside. Borne on the breath of the rising east wind, a single, solemn "bong" of the Twenty-third Street tower tells that the watcher has quickly descried the unusual smoke-cloud billowing up from the doomed dwelling. People in adjoining houses are throwing open blinds and shouting unintelligible things. Boys and men come clambering over fences from adjoining yards. Cooks and housemaids gather on back galleries, huddling together with shawls over their heads and red arms wrapped in flimsy aprons. A pile of bedding comes hurtling down through the smoke from a third-story window, followed by a lot of books. Somebody has fetched a ladder, and a dozen boys and men have scrambled to the tar and pebble roof of the stable, and there they dance and shout and run hither and yon, but still no firemen appear. The nearest hook and ladder company "lies" seven blocks away. The school is down at the foot of the First (fire) District. The jangling bells of 61 Hose can be heard coming on the jump down the avenue, and every boy knows Pacific Engine can't be a block behind. But now the "hot black breath" rushing from the basement and first-floor windows bursts all at once into furious red flames, and Halsey says resignedly, "School's dismissed till the fire's out." The boys go tumbling over each other's heels in mad dash for the door, and the thunder of feet, as they go leaping down the narrow stairway, shakes and scandalizes the watchmakers in the little shop below, and Mr. Foley, rushing out at the first boy he can lay hands on, shakes him in turn until, amazed and wrathful, the young fellow breaks loose, whirls about, and lands a stunning left-and-right full in Foley's angry face, and turns it even redder, while every other big boy springs to the aid of "28," just lowering her long side levers and "taking the butt" from "61," while two or three stalwart, black-helmeted fellows dart up the brownstone steps and into the smoke-vomiting doorway, glistening pipe in hand, the copper-riveted, black leather hose trailing behind them. Before the water gushes from the corner hydrant and swells the snake-like coils that connect with the engine, the pipemen come reeling out before the jetting flames, and