“I’d like nothing better than to go to fires all the time,” replied Bruce, “but the fact is that the chief wants me to stay at the quarters while the men are away. So, while they’re off fighting the fire, I have to hang around and wait for them to come back. It’s mighty stupid work I can tell you, and I don’t mind saying that I’m getting rather sick of it and would like to find a job somewhere else.” “I guess that’s what’s the matter with you, young man,” replied the captain. “You don’t get variety enough in your life, and the next time I see the chief, I’m going to speak to him about it. You’ll never fit yourself to take a good position in the department unless you go out with the men. You can learn more by helping to put out one fire than you can by sitting around an engine house for a year. You’d better not think of looking for another job though, until you give this business a fair trial. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t make as good a fireman as your father was, for you’re quick and you’ve got a cool head on you just like that bay horse over there. There are some boys that you could never make firemen of, because they’re lazy and will shirk their work whenever they can, just like that black horse that goes on the tender. We’ve had him here a week and he’s going back to-morrow because he is no good.” Bruce looked at the two animals as the captain pointed them out to him, and realized that there was as much variety in horses as in boys. The bay who helped to pull the fire engine was a strong, clean limbed animal with a fine shaped head, sensitive ears and a quick, alert look in his face that was unmistakable. The black, on the other hand, was a fat, sleepy looking animal who held his head down most of the time, and had such thick, clumsy looking legs that Bruce wondered how it was that he ever got to a fire on time. “The next time—” began Captain Murphy, but what he intended to say will never be known, for just at that moment the sharp stroke of the gong startled him to his feet. Bruce started also, from mere force of habit, little dreaming of the whole significance of that sharply clanging bell. From force of habit also he turned to see if he couldn’t lend a hand. The men were already at the heads of the engine horses, and the heavy footed black was lumbering slowly from his stall to his place at the pole of the tender. Without waiting to be told, Bruce sprang at his head, snapped the collar about his neck, adjusted his head-stall and attached the reins, and did it all so quickly and thoroughly that Captain Murphy, who was just leaping from the floor to his place on the ash-pan, cried out: “Well done, young man, we’ll make a fireman of you yet.” And then, acting on the spur of a sudden and fortunate inspiration, Bruce made answer, with a meaning glance at his superior: “Not unless you give me a chance to go to fires.”