Fighting the Flames

“Now, ladies an’ gents, the next thing I’ve got to hoffer is a harm-chair. Hand up the harmchair, Jim.”

A very antique piece of furniture was handed up by a little boy, whom Willie recognised as the little boy who had once conversed with him in front of the chocolate-shop in Holborn Hill.

“Thank you, my son,” said the clown, taking the chair with one hand and patting the boy’s head with the other; “this, ladies and gents,” he added in a parenthetical tone, “is my son; he’s bin burnt hout of ’ouse an’ ’ome, too! Now, then, who bids for the old harm-chair? the wery identical harm-chair that the song was written about. In the embrace o’ this ’ere chair has sat for generations past the family o’ the Cattleys—that’s my name, ladies an gents, at your service. Here sat my great-great-grandfather, who was used to say that his great-grandfather sat in it too. Here sat his son, and his son’s son—the Lord Mayor as was—and his son, my father, ladies and gents, who died in it besides, and whose son now hoffers it to the ’ighest bidder. You’ll observe its antiquity, ladies an’ gents. That’s its beauty. It’s what I may call, in the language of the haristocracy, a harticle of virtoo, w’ich means that it’s a harticle as is surrounded by virtuous memories in connection with the defunct. Now then, say five bob for the hold harm-chair!”

While the clown was endeavouring to get the chair disposed of, Willie pushed his way to the side of Jim Cattley.

“I say, youngster, would you like a cup o’ chocolate?” began Willie by way of recalling to the boy their former meeting.

Jim, whose face wore a sad and dispirited look, turned angrily and said, “Come, I don’t want none o’ your sauce!”

“It ain’t sauce I’m talkin’ of, it’s chocolate,” retorted Willie. “But come, Jim, I don’t want to bother ye. I’m sorry to see you an yer dad in sitch a fix. Have you lost much?”

“It’s not what we’ve lost that troubles us,” said Jim, softened by Willie’s sympathetic tone more than by his words; “but sister Ziza is took bad, an’ she’s a fairy at Drury Lane, an’ takin’ her down the fire-escape has well-nigh killed her, an’ we’ve got sitch a cold damp cellar of a place to put her in, that I don’t think she’ll get better at all; anyhow, she’ll lose her engagement, for she can’t make two speeches an’ go up in a silver cloud among blue fire with the ’flooenzer, an ’er ’air all but singed off ’er ’ead.”

Jim almost whimpered at this point, and Willie, quitting his side abruptly, went back to Frank (who was still standing an amused auditor of the clown), and demanded a shilling.

“What for, lad?”

“Never you mind, Blazes; but give me the bob, an’ I’ll pay you back before the week’s out.”

Frank gave him a shilling, with which he at once returned to Jim, and thrusting it into his hand, said:

“There, Jim, your dad’s hard up just now. Go you an’ get physic with that for the fairy. Them ’floo-enzers is ticklish things to play with. Where d’ye stop?”

“Well, you are a queer ’un; thank’ee all the same,” said Jim, pocketing the shilling. “We’ve got a sort o’ cellar just two doors east o’ the burnt ’ouse. Why?”

“’Cause I’ll come an’ see you, Jim. I’d like to see a live fairy in plain clo’se, with her wings off—”

The rest of the sentence was cut short by the clown, who, having disposed of the old arm-chair to a chimney-sweep, ordered Jim to “’and up another harticle.” At the same moment Frank touched Willie on the shoulder, and said, “Let’s go, lad; I’ll be late, I fear, for the gymnastics.”

At the period of which we write, the then Chief of the London Fire Brigade, Mr Braidwood, had introduced a system of gymnastic training among the firemen, which he had found from experience to be a most useful exercise to fit the men for the arduous work they had to perform. Before going to London to take command of and reorganise the brigade which then went by the name of the London Fire-Engine Establishment, and was in a very unsatisfactory condition, Mr Braidwood had, for a long period, been chief of the Edinburgh Fire Brigade, which he had brought to a state of great efficiency. Taking the requirements and conditions of the service in Edinburgh into consideration, he had come to the conclusion that the best men for the work in that city were masons, house-carpenters, slaters, and suchlike; but these men, when at their ordinary employments, being accustomed to bring only certain muscles into full play, were found to have a degree of stiffness in their general movements which prevented them from performing their duty as firemen with that ease and celerity which are so desirable. To obviate this evil he instituted the gymnastic exercises, which, by bringing all the muscles of the body into action, and by increasing the development of the frame generally, rendered the men lithe and supple, and in every way more fitted for the performance of duties in which their lives frequently depended on their promptitude and vigour.

In addition to these advantages, it was found that those exercises gave the men confidence when placed in certain situations of danger. “For example,” writes Mr Braidwood, “a fireman untrained in gymnastics, on the third or fourth floor of a burning house, with the branch in his hands, who is uncertain as to his means of escape, in the event of his return by the stair being cut off, will be too much concerned about his own safety to render much service, and will certainly not be half so efficient as the experienced gymnast, who, with a hatchet and eighty feet of rope at his waist, and a window near him, feels himself in comparative security, knowing that he has the means and the power of lowering himself easily and safely into the street”—a knowledge which not only gives him confidence, but enables him to give his undistracted attention to the exigencies of the fire.

It was to attend this gymnastic class that Frank now turned aside, and proposed to bid Willie goodbye; but Willie begged to be taken into the room. Frank complied, and the boy soon found himself in an apartment fitted up with all the appliances of a gymnasium, where a number of powerful young men were leaping, vaulting, climbing, and in other ways improving their physical powers. Frank joined them, and for a long time Willie stood in rapt and envious contemplation of the busy scene.

At first he could not avoid feeling that there seemed a good deal more of play than business in their doings; but his admiration of the scene deepened when he remembered the bold acts of the firemen at Beverly Square, and recognised some of the faces of the men who had been on duty there, and reflected that these very men, who seemed thus to be playing themselves, would on that very night, in all probability, be called upon to exert these powers sternly and seriously, yet coolly, in the midst of scenes of terror and confusion, and in the face of imminent personal danger.

Brooding over these things, Willie, having at length torn himself away, hastened on his pilgrimage to London Bridge.

Chapter Ten

Difficulties and Dissipations

In a very small office, situate in a very large warehouse, in that great storehouse of the world’s wealth, Tooley Street, sat a clerk named Edward Hooper.

Among his familiar friends Edward was better known by the name of Ned.

He was seated on the top of a tall three-legged stool, which, to judge from the uneasy and restless motions of its occupant, must have been a peculiarly uncomfortable seat indeed.

There was a clock on the wall just opposite to Ned’s desk, which that young gentleman was in the habit of consulting frequently—very frequently—and comparing with his watch, as if he doubted its veracity. This was very unreasonable, for he always found that the two timepieces told the truth; at least, that they agreed with each other. Nevertheless, in his own private heart, Ned Hooper thought that clock—and sometimes called it—“the slowest piece of ancient furniture he had ever seen.”

During one of Ned’s comparisons of the two timepieces the door opened, and Mr Auberly entered, with a dark cloud, figuratively speaking, on his brow.

At the same moment the door of an inner office opened, and Mr Auberly’s head clerk, who had seen his employer’s approach through the dusty window, issued forth and bowed respectfully, with a touch of condolence in his air, as he referred with much regret to the fire at Beverly Square, and hoped that Miss Auberly was not much the worse of her late alarm.

“Well, she is not the better for it,” said Mr Auberly; “but I hope she will be quite well soon. Indeed, the doctor assures me of this, if care is taken of her. I wish that was the only thing on my mind just now; but I am perplexed about another matter, Mr Quill. Are you alone?”

“Quite alone, sir,” said Quill, throwing open the door of the inner office.

“I want to consult with you about Frederick,” said Mr Auberly as he entered.

The door shut out the remainder of the consultation at this point, so Edward Hooper consulted the clock again and sighed.

If sighs could have delivered Hooper from his sorrows, there is no doubt that the accumulated millions of which he was delivered in that office, during the last five years, would have filled him with a species of semi-celestial bliss.

At last, the hands of the clock reached the hour, the hour that was wont to evoke Ned’s last sigh and set him free; but it was an aggravating clock. Nothing would persuade it to hurry. It would not, for all the untold wealth contained in the great stores of Tooley Street, have abated the very last second of the last minute of the hour. On the contrary, it went through that second quite as slowly as all the others. Ned fancied it went much slower at that one on purpose; and then, with a sneaking parade of its intention to begin to strike, it gave a prolonged hiss, and did its duty, and nothing but its duty; by striking the hour at a pace so slow, that it recalled forcibly to Ned Hooper’s imaginative mind, “the minute-gun at sea.”

There was a preliminary warning given by that clock some time before the premonitory hiss. Between this harbinger of coming events, and the joyful sound which was felt to be “an age,” Ned was wont to wipe his pen and arrange his papers. When the hiss began, he invariably closed his warehouse book and laid it in the desk, and had the desk locked before the first stroke of the hour. While the “minute-gun at sea” was going on, he changed his office-coat for a surtout, not perfectly new, and a white hat with a black band, the rim of which was not perfectly straight. So exact and methodical was Ned in these operations, that his hand usually fell on the door-latch as the last gun was fired by the aggravating clock. On occasions of unusual celerity he even managed to drown the last shot in the bang of the door, and went off with a sensation of triumph.

On the present occasion, however, Ned Hooper deemed it politic to be so busy, that he could not attend to the warnings of the timepiece. He even sat on his stool a full quarter of an hour beyond the time of departure. At length, Mr Auberly issued forth.

“Mr Quill,” said he, “my mind is made up, so it is useless to urge such considerations on me. Good-night.”

Mr Quill, whose countenance was sad, looked as though he would willingly have urged the considerations referred to over again, and backed them up with a few more; but Mr Auberly’s tone was peremptory, so he only opened the door, and bowed the great man out.

“You can go, Hooper,” said Mr Quill, retiring slowly to the inner office, “I will lock up. Send the porter here.”

This was a quite unnecessary permission. Quill, being a good-natured, easy-going man, never found fault with Ned Hooper, and Ned being a presumptuous young fellow, though good-humoured enough, never waited for Mr Quill’s permission to go. He was already in the act of putting on the white hat; and, two seconds afterwards, was in the street wending his way homeward.

There was a tavern named the “Angel” at the corner of one of the streets off Tooley Street, which Edward Hooper had to pass every evening on his way home. Ned, we grieve to say, was fond of his beer; he always found it difficult to pass a tavern. Yet, curiously enough, he never found any difficulty in passing this tavern; probably because he always went in and slaked his thirst before passing it.

“Good evening, Mr Hooper,” said the landlord, who was busy behind his counter serving a motley and disreputable crew.

Hooper nodded in reply, and said good evening to Mrs Butler, who attended to the customers at another part of the counter.

“Good evenin’, sir. W’at’ll you ’ave to-night, sir?”

“Pot o’ the same, Mrs B,” replied Ned.

This was the invariable question and reply, for Ned was a man of regularity and method in everything that affected his personal comforts. Had he brought one-tenth of this regularity and method to bear on his business conduct, he would have been a better and a happier man.

The foaming pot was handed, and Ned conversed with Mrs Butler while he enjoyed it, and commenced his evening, which usually ended in semi-intoxication.

Meanwhile, Edward Hooper’s “chum” and fellow-lodger sat in their mutual chamber awaiting him.

John Barret did not drink, but he smoked; and, while waiting for his companion, he solaced himself with a pipe. He was a fine manly fellow, very different from Ned; who, although strong of limb and manly enough, was slovenly in gait and dress, and bore unmistakable marks of dissipation about him.

“Very odd; he’s later than usual,” muttered Barret, as he glanced out at the window, and then at the tea-table, which, with the tea-service, and, indeed everything in the room, proved that the young men were by no means wealthy.

“He’ll be taking an extra pot at the ‘Angel,’” muttered John Barret, proceeding to re-light his pipe, while he shook his head gravely; “but he’ll be here soon.”

A foot on the stair caused Barret to believe that he was a true prophet; but the rapidity and firmness of the step quickly disabused him of that idea.

The door was flung open with a crash, and a hearty youth with glowing eyes strode in.

“Fred Auberly!” exclaimed Barret in surprise.

“Won’t you welcome me?” demanded Fred.

“Welcome you? Of course I will, most heartily, old boy!” cried Barret, seizing his friend’s hand and wringing it; “but if you burst in on a fellow unexpectedly in this fashion, and with such wild looks, why—”

“Well, well, don’t explain, man; I hate explanations. I have come here for sympathy,” said Fred Auberly, shutting the door and sitting down by the fire.

“Sympathy, Fred?”

“Ay, sympathy. When a man is in distress he naturally craves for sympathy, and he turns, also naturally, to those who can and will give it—not to everybody, John Barret—only to those who can feel with him as well as for him. I am in distress, John, and ever since you and I fought our first and last battle at Eton, I have found you a true sympathiser. So now, is your heart ready to receive the flood of my sorrows?”

Young Auberly said the latter part of this in a half-jesting tone, but he was evidently in earnest, so his friend replied by squeezing his hand warmly, and saying, “Let’s hear about it, Fred,” while he re-lighted his pipe.

“You have but a poor lodging here, John,” said Auberly, looking round the room.

Barret turned on his friend a quick look of surprise, and then said, with a smile:

“Well, I admit that it is not quite equal to a certain mansion in Beverly Square that I wot of, but it’s good enough for a poor clerk in an insurance office.”

“You are right,” continued Auberly; “it is not equal to that mansion, whose upper floors are at this moment a chevaux-de-frise of charcoal beams and rafters depicted on a dark sky, and whose lower floors are a fantastic compound of burned bricks and lime, broken boards, and blackened furniture.”

“You don’t mean to say there’s been a fire?” exclaimed Barret.

“And you don’t mean to tell me, do you, that a clerk in a fire insurance office does not know it?”

“I have been ill for two days,” returned Barret, “and have not seen the papers; but I’m very sorry to hear of it; indeed I am. The house is insured, of course?”

“I believe it is,” replied Fred carelessly; “but that is not what troubles me.”

“No?” exclaimed his friend.

“No,” replied the other. “If the house had not been insured my father has wealth enough in those abominably unpicturesque stores in Tooley Street to rebuild the whole of Beverly Square if it were burnt down. The fire costs me not a thought, although, by the way, it nearly cost me my life, in a vain attempt I made to rescue my poor dear sister Loo—”

“Vain attempt!” exclaimed Barret, with a look of concern.

“Ay, vain, as far as I was concerned; but a noble fireman—a fellow that would make a splendid model for Hercules in the Life Academy—sprang to the rescue after me and saved her. God bless him! Dear Loo has got a severe shake, but the doctors say that we have only to take good care of her, and she will do well. But to return to my woes. Listen, John, and you shall hear.”

Fred Auberly paused, as though meditating how he should commence.

“You know,” said he, “that I am my father’s only son, and Loo his only daughter.”

“Yes.”

“Well, my father has disinherited me and left the whole of his fortune to Loo. As far as dear Loo is concerned I am glad; for myself I am sad, for it is awkward, to say the least of it, to have been brought up with unlimited command of pocket-money, and expectations of considerable wealth, and suddenly to find myself all but penniless, without a profession and without expectations, at the age of twenty-two.”

He paused and looked at his friend, who sat in mute amazement.

“Failing Loo,” continued Fred calmly, “my father’s fortune goes to some distant relative.”

“But why? wherefore?” exclaimed Barret.

“You shall hear,” continued Auberly. “You are aware that ever since I was able to burn the end of a stick and draw faces on the nursery-door, I have had a wild, insatiable passion for drawing; and ever since the memorable day on which I was whipped by my father, and kissed, tearfully, by my beloved mother, for caricaturing our cook on the dining-room window with a diamond-ring, I have had an earnest, unextinguishable desire to become a—a painter, an artist, a dauber, a dirtier of canvas. D’ye understand?”

“Perfectly,” said Barret.

“Well, my father has long been resolved, it seems, to make me a man of business, for which I have no turn whatever. You are aware that for many years I have dutifully slaved and toiled at these heavy books in our office—which have proved so heavy that they have nearly squeezed the soul out of me—and instead of coming to like them better (as I was led to believe I should), I have only come to hate them more. During all this time, too, I have been studying painting late and early, and although I have not gone through the regular academical course, I have studied much in the best of all schools, that of Nature. I have urged upon my father repeatedly and respectfully, that it is possible for me to uphold the credit of the family as a painter; that, as the business can be carried on by subordinates, there is no necessity for me to be at the head of it; and that, as he has made an ample fortune already, the half of which he had told me was to be mine, I would be quite satisfied with my share, and did not want any more. But my father would never listen to my arguments. The last time we got on the subject he called me a mean-spirited fellow, and said he was sorry I had ever been born; whereupon I expressed regret that he had not been blessed with a more congenial and satisfactory son, and tried to point out that it was impossible to change my nature. Then I urged all the old arguments over again, and wound up by saying that even if I were to become possessor of the whole of his business to-morrow, I would sell it off, take to painting as a profession, and become the patron of aspiring young painters from that date forward!

“To my surprise and consternation, this last remark put him in such a towering rage, that he vowed he would disinherit me, if I did not then and there throw my palette and brushes into the fire. Of course, I declined to do such an act, whereupon he dismissed me from his presence for ever. This occurred on the morning of the day of the fire. I thought he might perhaps relent after such an evidence of the mutability of human affairs. I even ventured to remind him that Tooley Street was not made of asbestos, and that an occasional fire occurred there! But this made him worse than ever; so I went the length of saying that I would, at all events, in deference to his wishes, continue to go to the office at least for some time to come. But, alas! I had roused him to such a pitch that he refused to hear of it, unless I should ‘throw my palette and brushes into the fire!’ Flesh and blood, you know, could not do that, so I left him, and walked off twenty miles into the country to relieve my feelings. There I fell in with such a splendid ‘bit;’ a sluice, with a stump of a tree, and a winding bit of water with overhanging willows, and a peep of country beyond! I sat down and sketched, and forgot my woes, and rejoiced in the fresh air and delightful sounds of birds, and cows, and sheep, and hated to think of Tooley Street. Then I slept in a country inn, walked back to London next day, and, voilà! here I am!”

“Don’t you think, Fred, that time will soften your father?”

“No, I don’t think it. On the contrary, I know it won’t. He is a good man; but he has an iron will, which I never saw subdued.”

“Then, my dear Fred, I advise you to consider the propriety of throwing your palette and brushes into—”

“My dear John, I did not come here for your advice. I came for your sympathy.”

“And you have it, Fred,” cried Barret earnestly. “But have you really such an unconquerable love for painting?”

“Have I really!” echoed Fred. “Do you think I would have come to such a pass as this for a trifle? Why, man, you have no idea how my soul longs for the life of a painter, for the free fresh air of the country, for the poetry of the woods, the water, and the sky, for the music of bird and beast and running brook. You know the true proverb, ‘Man made the town; but God made the country!’”

“What,” asked Barret, “would become of the town, if all men thought as you do?”

“Oh! John Barret, has town life so marred your once fine intellect, that you put such a question in earnest? Suppose I answer it by another: What would become of the country if all men thought and acted as you do?”

Barret smiled and smoked.

“And what,” continued Auberly, “would become of the fine arts if all men delighted in dirt, dust, dullness, and desks? Depend upon it, John, that our tastes and tendencies are not the result of accident; they were given to us for a purpose. I hold it as an axiom that when a man or a boy has a strong and decided bias or partiality for any particular work that he knows something about, he has really a certain amount of capacity for that work beyond the average of men, and is led thereto by a higher power than that of man. Do not misunderstand me. I do not say that, when a boy expresses a longing desire to enter the navy or the army, he has necessarily an aptitude for these professions. Far from it. He has only a romantic notion of something about which, experimentally, he knows nothing; but, when man or boy has put his hand to any style of work, and thereafter loves it and longs after it, I hold that that is the work for which he was destined, and for which he is best suited.”

“Perhaps you are right,” said Barret, smoking harder than ever. “At all events, I heartily sympathise with you, and—”

At this point the conversation was interrupted by a loud burst of whistling, as the street-door opened and the strains of “Rule Britannia” filled the entire building. The music was interrupted by the sudden opening of another door, and a rough growl from a male voice.

“Don’t get waxy, old feller,” said the performer in a youthful voice, “I ain’t a-goin’ to charge you nothink for it. I always do my music gratis; havin’ a bee-nevolient turn o’ mind.”

The door was slammed violently, and “Rule Britannia” immediately burst forth with renewed and pointed emphasis.