May had just returned home, and having learned this little piece of news, which she very properly deemed not at all complimentary to herself, was in as vexable a mood as her amiability ever allowed.  Her cousin Hal suddenly entered the room in a rather boisterous manner, with the exclamation: 

“Hurrah!  May, I am going to be a fireman!”

“So I should suspect,” returned May, a little pettishly.

“Suspect?” said Hal, sobering down in a moment.

May laughed.

“Why will you join such a set of rowdies, Hal?  I should think it quite beneath me!”

“Rowdies!  Those loafers who hang about the companies, attracted by the excitement and the noise, do not belong to the department.”

“You know the old adage, Hal,—­’People are known by the company they keep,’ that is, ‘birds of a feather flock together.’”

“Why, May, this is too bad!  They are the noblest fellows in the world.”

“Noble!  I have lived too long in Philadelphia not to know something about firemen.  They used to frighten me almost out of my senses.  Once we thought they would set fire to the whole city, murder the people and drink their blood!  O, such a savage set you never saw!”

Hal laughed outright.

“Shoot the men, strangle the women, and swallow the children alive!” he echoed, mockingly.

“It is no subject for jesting, Mr. Hal Delancey.  Philadelphia is not the only place.  Take up the papers any morning, and what will you find under the Williamsburgh head?  Accounts of riots, street-battles, and plunderings, in all of which the firemen have had a conspicuous part, and New York is not much better.”

“Well, May, you do make out the firemen to be a miserable set, most assuredly.  Now, if I had not already committed myself,” continued Hal, jestingly, “almost you would persuade me to denounce this gang of rowdies, murderers and robbers; but the Rubicon is passed!”

“I do detest a fireman above all men!” ejaculated May, emphatically, as Hal left the house to go down town and procure his equipment.  Little did either of them dream what was to be the scene of his first fire.

May’s too sound slumbers were disturbed about twelve o’clock that night by a confused rush of sounds, cries, shrieks, crackling beams and falling timbers.  She wrapped her dressing-gown around her, and rushed to the door.  Unclasping the bolts, she threw it open, but hastily closed it again, for smoke and flame rushed in, almost suffocating her.

“O, God, save me!” she murmured, huskily, flying to the window, only to gaze upon a scene which sent dismay to her heart.  Clouds of flame and smoke enveloped everything.  For a moment the bursting mass of fire was stayed by a huge stream of water, and she caught a glimpse of the crowd below.