The two boys lingered about the station admiring all this, and commenting in their own peculiar fashion on men and things, sometimes approvingly, often critically, and now and then disparagingly. They sometimes ventured to address a remark or two to any of the men who chanced to look at them with a sufficiently good-humoured expression, and even went the length of asking Bob Clazie if, in the event of the Thames going on fire, "'e thought 'e could manage to put it hout!" to which Bob replied that he thought he could if "cheek" were a fire-extinguisher, and he only had a brigade of boys equal to the Bloater to help him. As the night advanced the firemen devoted themselves to pipes, draughts, and miscellaneous conversation in their back room, in which they were occasionally interrupted by the tingle of the telegraphic bell, to inform them that there was a chimney on fire in Holborn, to which they need pay no attention, even though "called" by an excited informer, because it was already being attended to, and didn't merit farther notice; or to let them know that there was a fire raging in Whitechapel, which, although being most energetically looked after by the men of the brigade in its immediate neighbourhood, would be the better of aid, nevertheless, from _one_ man from that station. On such distant duty, Bob Clazie and his brother David were successively sent out in different directions during the first part of the night; but they returned in the course of an hour or so--Bob considerably dirtied and moistened in consequence of having had to go vigorously into action at the tail end of a fire, while David returned as he went, having found that _his_ fire had been effectually got under before his arrival. Only once during the night did a regular "call" reach the station. It was about eleven o'clock. Our youthful watchmen, feeling that the appointed hour was drawing nigh, had retired to the shade of a neighbouring court to avoid observation, when a man came tearing round the corner, dashed into the fire-station, tumbled over a bucket into the midst of the men, and yelled, "Fire!" In three minutes the engine was out, the horses were attached, the men in their places, and away they went. "Oh! let's follow," cried Little Jim, enthusiastically, while his eyes glittered as if they, too, were on fire. The more sedate Bloater laid his hand heavily on his little friend's shoulder. "No, Jim, no. Business fust, pleasure arterwards. We've got business on hand to-night."