Page 143 - An Amateur Fireman

The men first marched past the reviewing stand to the music of the band, after which, in response to an alarm
sounded by the mayor, the engines and their crews returned along the Drive at full tilt, with fires lighted,
whistles blowing, and bells ringing, as if running to a fire.

During the early part of the evening after the exhibition on Riverside Drive, a boy clad in the full uniform of a
fireman, wearing on the left breast of his coat a handsome gold medal suspended by a knot of red ribbon,
walked rapidly down the street toward the headquarters of Ninety-four engine, and a crowd of lads, who
might have been bootblacks or newsboys, gathered on the sidewalk, cheered him loudly as he came in view,
after which the senior member of the firm of Roberts & Dean shouted shrilly:

"Now let's give three more rousers for the substitute fireman of Ninety-four engine!"

And the cheers were given with such a hearty will that citizens more than a block away turned hastily to ask
one of the other why the police allowed such a disturbance to be made at that hour.

THE END.