“You see,” said the chief, as he led the boy through the engine house, “this is a double company. That is to say, there’s an engine and tender here to go out at the first alarm, and another to move up and take their places, so as to be ready in case an alarm comes in while the first company is off at the fire. Of course this engine that stands right here in front by the door is the one to go first, and its tender, or hose wagon as it used to be called in old times, goes with it. Then they move the second engine and tender right up to the front; the second relay of horses drop down and take their places in the other stalls, and within two minutes after the alarm was first sounded, there is a complete equipment ready to go out to any other fires that may occur in the vicinity. “Now I want you to notice the way this engine is kept ready for action at a second’s notice. You see from the gauge that there is twenty pounds pressure of steam in her boiler now, although there is no fire lit, and she has been standing here all day. That is because the steam is kept up from a fire in the basement, and the connection is made by these pipes that come up through the floor. The minute the engine starts, the connection with the pipes underneath is shut off automatically, and then as soon as the wheels cross the threshold of the building, the fire is lit, and as the swift motion of the street acts as a sort of draught, there is a big blaze going in less than two minutes. There’s a little contrivance I want you to see, and although it may seem like a trivial one to you, it is really a very useful time-saving device.” As he said this, he took from a rack above the ash-pan a pine stick about six inches long, around one end of which was wrapped a quantity of rags soaked in kerosene, from the midst of which protruded the heads of half a dozen matches.