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The pump, pump, swing, swing of the manual engines; the quick, short pant of the steam fire-engine; the stream and hiss of the water; shouts and answers; gleaming brass helmets; frightened birds; crowds of white faces, whose frames are in shadow; a red glow on the black, wet mud of the empty pond; rosy light on the walls of the homestead, crossed with vast magnified shadows; windows glistening; men dragging sail-like tarpaulins and rick cloths to cover the sheds; constables upright and quiet, but watchful, standing at intervals to keep order; if by day, the strangest mixture of perfect calm and heated anxiety, the smoke bluish, the floating flakes visible as black specks, the flames tawny, pigeons fluttering round, cows grazing in idol-like indifference to human fears.
This he was wont to do, and, after emitting them through his silky beard, he would draw in his breath through parted teeth, as a child does when it has the taste of peppermint in its mouth. "I-I-I t-tell you, a boy in a kindergarten could get it right a g-g-guttersnipe could. This was so much like what they yell from a fire-engine that, though I struggled hard, I could not contain a giggle.
This was rebuilt to enable a considerable quantity of the fire-extinguishing liquid to be stored in the under part of the somewhat limited cockpit. This much done, and while his men were making up a quantity of the extinguisher, using the secret formula, and storing it in suitable containers, Tom began attaching a searchlight to his "cloud fire-engine," as Koku called it.
He could run from bottom to top of a column of figures more quickly than the fire-engine could run up Oldcastle Street; and his totals were never wrong. His gesture with a piece of blotting-paper as he blotted off a total was magnificent.
The next night he could not ride out from the city; he must walk. When he got beyond the bridge, he wondered that he saw no horse-cars coming toward him. He remembered that he had seen none for some time, but now he noticed a long line of them standing before him, pointed outward. He heard the puff of a steam fire-engine, and saw that travel by rail was stopped by a fire.
He couldn't leave his kiddie-car, that was certain. And there was the woolly black dog he took to bed with him at night, and a Teddy Bear that he was almost too old to play with, but not quite, and the wooden blocks. Then he would be sure to need his fire-engine and the roller skates. He must take all those with him.
Running to his parents' bedroom he told them of his going, and was down the stairs and out into the street in a trice. Dim figures of men and other boys were hurrying by in the direction of the town fire-hall, a block distant, and on the run Jack also headed thither. For to help pull the fire-engine or hose-cart to a fire was the ardent hobby of every lad in town.
Besides, she had been left by lord Herbert in charge of his fire-engine and the water of the castle, which trust she could not abandon. Whatever might be yet to come of it, she must stay and encounter it, and would in the meantime set herself to discover, if she might, the secret pathway by which dog and man came and went at their pleasure.
Next succeeded the series of adjoining shop-fronts, with their various windows, signs, and styles; all wooden and clap-boarded, however, except the fire-engine house, of red brick, with its wide central door and boarded slope to the street.
But, Henry, you surely are still very unwell; your heart is thumping underneath my ear like a fire-engine. 'They are all love-thumps for Winifred, I said, with pretended jocosity; 'they are all love-thumps for my Winnie. 'But of course, said she, 'this is quite a secret about the precious stones.
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