Page 60 - An Amateur Fireman

"I ain't certain you'd have seen so many of 'em, Sam, if it hadn't been that they was all in a bunch listenin' to
the news 'bout Seth Bartlett, an' after hearin' it was in good trim for anythin'."

"What's the news 'bout Seth?" Sam asked with mild curiosity.

"Why, he's goin' into the Department."

"Who? Seth Bartlett?"

"Yep. That is, it's jest 'bout the same thing. Ninety-four's men have found him a job up to headquarters where
he'll have a chance to learn the business, 'cause there's what you might call a school for firemen up there."

Sam remained silent fully an instant gazing at his friend in open-mouthed astonishment, and then he said
emphatically if not a trifle viciously:

"I don't b'lieve a word of it; that's one of Seth Bartlett's yarns!"

"He ain't the kind of feller that goes 'round lyin', an' it would be a chump trick for him to begin it now, 'cause
if he don't flash up in that uniform by to-morrow night we'll know he's been stuffin' us."

"Well, maybe there's somethin' in it," Sam replied grudgingly, after a brief hesitation; "but it seems to me the
Fire Department must be pretty hard up when they'll take in a feller like Seth."

"I don't know why he wouldn't make as good a fireman as you will a detective. He's been runnin' with
Ninety-four for more'n a year."

"What does that 'mount to? He's never done anythin' same's I have, to show that he had the stuff in him."

"They say he come pretty nigh savin' 'Lish Davis's life the other night when them storage warehouses burned."

"Oh, that's all in your eye. Dan Roberts told the yarn so's to make hisself solid with Seth."

There was no further opportunity for Sam to cast discredit upon Seth's story, because the time was near at
hand when he should take his departure, and those who had contributed to this important event were eager to
hear in what way he proposed to distinguish himself.

"I'll catch Jip Collins an' send him up the river for five or ten years," he said in reply to the questions of his
friends, "an' then I reckon people will find out whether I 'mount to anything as a detective, or not."

"Are you sure he's over in Philadelphy?" one of the boys asked of Sam.

"Course I am."

"How did you find it out?"

"It wouldn't be any use for me to try to tell, 'cause you couldn't understand it; but that's where the detective
business comes in. I've figgered it all out, an' in less than half an hour from the time the train strikes the town
I'll have him 'rested."

Some of those who were in the secret smiled; but Bill Dean and his friends refrained from any display of
mirth, lest Sam, grown suspicious of his own wisdom, should at the last moment refuse to leave the city.