"Hear! hear!" said a comic fireman.

The compliment began to tell, though. Others
put in their word. "Why, Mr. Baldwin, if a
gentleman ain't ashamed of us, why should we
be ashamed of him?"

"Where will ye get a better?" asked another;
and added, "He is no stranger; we've seen him
work."

"Stop a bit," said the comic fireman: "what
does the dog say? just call him, sir, if you please;
his name is Charlie."

Edward called the fire-dog kindly; he came
and fawned on him; then gravely snuffed him all
round, and retired wagging his tail gently, as
much as to say, " I was rather taken by surprise
at first, but, on the whole, I see no reason to
recal my judgment."

"It is all right," said the firemen in chorus;
and one that had not yet spoken to Edward now
whispered him mysteriously, "Ye see that there
dog he knows more than we do."

After the dog, a biped oracle at head-quarters
was communicated with, and late that very night
Edward was actually enrolled a fireman; and
went home warmer at heart than he had been for
some time. They were all in bed; and, when he
came down in the morning, Julia was reading
out of the 'Tiser a spirited and magniloquent
description of a fire in Southwark, and of the
heroism displayed by a young gentleman
unknown, but whose name the writer hoped at so
much the line would never be allowed to pass
into oblivion; and be forgotten. In short, the
'Tiser paid him in one column for years of devotion.
Now Edward, of course, was going to relate
his adventure; but the journal told it so
gloriously, he hesitated to say, "I did all that."
He just sat and stared, and wondered, and
blushed, and grinned like an imbecile.

Unfortunately looks seldom escaped the
Doddesses. "What is that for?" inquired Julia,
reproachfully. "Is that sheepish face the thing
to wear, when a sister is reading out an heroic
action? Oh, these are the tilings that make one
long to be a man, to do them. What are you
thinking about, dear?"

"Well, I am thinking the 'Tiser is pitching it
rather strong."

"My love, what an expression!"

"Well, then, to be honest, I agree with you
that it is a jolly thing to fight with fire and save
men's lives; and I am glad you see it in that
light; for now you will approve the step I have
taken. Ladies, I have put myself in the way of
doing this sort of .thing every week of my life.
I'm a fireman."

"You are jesting, I trust?" said Mrs. Dodd,
anxiously.

"No, mamma. I got the place late last night,
and I'm to enter on my duties and put on the
livery next Monday. Hurrah!"

Instantly the admirers of fiery heroes at a distance
overflowed with grief and mortification at
the prospect of one in their own family. They
could not speak at all at first: and, when they
did, it was only " Cruel! cruel!" from Julia; and
"Our humiliation is now complete," from Mrs.
Dodd.

They soon dashed Edward's spirits, and made
him unhappy; but they could not convince him
he had done wrong. However, in the heat of
remonstrance, they let out at last that they had
just begun to hope by dint of scissors and paintbrush
to send him back to Oxford. He also
detected, under a cloud of tender, loving, soothing,
coaxing, and equivocating, expressions, their
idea of a Man: to wit, a tall, strong, ornamental
creature, whom the women were to cocker up,
and pet, and slave for; and be rewarded by basking,
dead tired, in an imperial smile or two let
fall by their sovereign protege from his arm-chair.
And, in fact, good women have often demoralised
their idols down to the dirt by this process; to
be sure their idols were sorryish clay, to begin.

Edward was anything but flowery, so he
paraded no manly sentiments in reply; he just
bluntly ridiculed the idea of his consenting to
prey on them; and he said humbly, "I know I
can't contribute as much to our living as you
two can—the petticoats carry the brains in our
family—but, be a burden to you? Not if I
know it."

"Pride! pride! pride!" objected Julia, lifting
her grand violet orbs like a pensive Madonna.

"And such pride! The pride that falls into a
fire-bucket," suggested prosaic mamma.

"That is cutting," said Edward: "but, soyons
de notre siècle; flunkeyism is on the decline.
I'll give you something to put in both your
pipes:

Honour and rank from no condition rise.
Act well thy part; in that the honour lies."

"Yes, yes," said Mrs. Dodd, "only first choose
your part: and let your choice be reasonable."

"Mine was Hobson's; who never chooses ill.
Come, come," said he, and appealed calmly to
their reason: by which means he made no
impression at all. Then he happened to say,
"Besides, I must do something; I own to you
I am more cast down than I choose to show.
Mother, I feel like lead ever since she died."
Now on this, their faces filled with sympathy
directly. So encouraged he went on to say;
"but when I got my hand on that old duffer's
collar, and lowered him to the ladder, and the
fire shot roaring out of the window after him,
too late to eat him, and the crowd cheered the
fireman and me, I did feel warm about the waistcoat,
and, for the first time this ever so long, life
seemed not quite ended; I felt there was a little
bit of good left, that even a poor dunce like me
could do, and she could approve; if she can
look down and see me, as I hope she can."

"There, there," said Mrs. Dodd tearfully, "I
am disarmed. But, my darling, I do not know
what you are talking about: stay; why Edward,
surely—I hope—you were not the young gentleman
in the paper: the one that risked his life
so nobly; so foolishly if it was you."