“It may be,” he said to himself one day, “that the boy has not enough to do, and is getting discontented because he finds the work so monotonous. It’s a queer sort of position for a lad to find himself in anyway, for at present he’s neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring. If he were a little older I’d try to get him a regular appointment in the department, but, as it is, I don’t see that I can do anything more for him except, maybe, to let him go to a fire now and then. It would be good practice for him and give him something new to think about.” Bruce was growing discontented, there was no doubt about that. The work, although not severe, was monotonous, and he found the confinement at the quarters, especially while the men were away at fires, extremely irksome. Moreover, he noticed that other lads of his age who were employed in mercantile houses seemed to live more active lives, to make fairly good wages, and to have altogether a better time than he did. He had pictured the life in the fire department as one of brilliant excitement, highly spiced with adventure and danger; and he had fancied himself as a sort of hero in a blue uniform and with a big fireman’s hat on his head, dashing through the streets on a fire engine or rescuing people from burning houses. He had also dreamt of getting his name, and perhaps his picture, into the newspapers, and of rising so rapidly in the department as to become its chief by the time he was twenty-one. And now instead of this life of adventure and success he found himself cooped up in a truck company’s quarters all day long with very little to do but look after the horses, help the men about the truck and run errands for the chief of battalion. These duties were certainly not exhilarating, and he had already become very tired of them, but it was positively galling to be compelled to stay behind when the company went to fires, and he never saw them set out without gazing longingly after the truck and wishing that he were riding on it at the side of Tom Brophy. But there are little things which change the current of human life, and one of these little things happened just as Bruce was on the point of asking the chief to let him take a position in some store or office and give up the fire department altogether. One afternoon, having been given a leave of absence from the quarters, he strolled down to Captain Murphy’s engine house, in order to have a chat with the captain, who had taken quite a liking to the son of his old friend and was always delighted to talk to him about the work in the department and to explain things that he did not know. “They ought to take you with them to fires,” said the captain after he had finished some trivial detail which the boy did not understand.