All these things were done so rapidly that Dick was bewildered. The time was not measured by minutes but by seconds. From the time of the first tap on the gong till Number Four reached the burning building, less than two hundred seconds passed. Then in fifty seconds more the first stream of water was playing upon the fire. “I saw you going up with the hose,” the battalion chief said when they returned to the engine-house. “So you have had some experience as a fireman. Now the men go to work and clean the engine and make ready for another alarm. We may have another call like that at any moment--or a much worse one.” Dick concluded that he had swallowed enough smoke and cinders to give him a clear idea of fire department work; “but I shall stick it out through the night,” he said. “I belong to the company at present; and if the engine goes out again, I go with her.” There were no more calls that took the engine out that night, and when he went home in time for breakfast he knew that he had material for one of his best articles. But writing it occupied the whole day, and the novel had to stand. “Now I hope they’ll let me have a week without any more interruptions,” he said to himself next day when he took up a handful of his latest pages and read them over to start in the right vein. “I am making as much money as I did on salary, but I should rather lose a little money than be interrupted so often. If I could just have a month to myself, I’d soon finish the book.” His wish was not quite gratified, but almost. He had days at a time to go on with his work, and the interruptions were brief. Steadily the heap of manuscript grew, and nearer and nearer the end approached. “Now, Dick, you must stop and rest,” Mrs. Sumner said to him one day, entering the parlor when he had accidentally left the door unlocked. They all laughed at his habit of locking the door, Dick as well as the rest. “But it makes me feel so much more secure. I don’t like to feel that anybody can suddenly walk in and bother me,” he said. “You must stop and rest,” Mrs. Sumner said. “You’ve been writing and writing and writing till you’re as pale as a ghost, and I’m sure you don’t eat anything. Do just look at that pile of pages you’ve written! I believe it grows an inch or two thicker every day, Dick.” “Give me a week more, mother,” he replied, “and I’ll take all the rest you like. Just one week more, and the great book will be finished. I don’t know how it’s going to turn out, whether it will go or not; but it will be a relief to have it finished, at any rate.” “Go!” his mother exclaimed; “what’s the use of talking that way, Dick? Of course it will go. Everything you’ve ever written, almost, has gone, and why shouldn’t this? The best publisher in the land will be only too glad to get it, with your name at the top.”