Item by item they went over the details of equipment--the scaling ladders,
the jumping sheets, the branch pipes, the suction pipes, the flat roses,
standcocks, goose necks, the dogtails, dam boards, shovels, saws, poleaxes,
hooks, and ropes. From a consideration of them the two branched off to the
generalities of fire fighting. Keith learned that the combating of a fire,
the driving it into a corner, outflanking it, was a fine art.

"I say always, _get in close_," said Taylor. "A fire can be _put_ out as
well as just drowned out."

It struck Keith as interesting that in a room a stream should always be
directed at the top of a fire, so that the water running down helps
extinguish the flames below, whereas in attack at the bottom or centre
merely puts out the immediate blaze, leaving the rest to spread upward or
sideways. Taylor put himself on record against fighting fire from the
street.

"Don't want a whole lot of water and row," he maintained. "Get in close
quarters and make every drop count."

When Bert's enthusiasm palled, Keith always found men in the reading-room.
The engine house was a sort of clearing house for politics, business
schemes, personal affairs, or differences.

Once a day, also, as part of his job in his profession, Keith went to the
courthouse. There he sat in the enclosure reserved for lawyers and listened
to the proceedings, his legal mind alert and interested in the technical
battles. At no time in the world's history has sheer technicality
unleavened by common sense been carried further than in the early