Chapter Three.

One pleasant afternoon in spring David Clazie and Ned Crashington sat smoking together in front of the fire in the lobby of the station, chatting of hair-breadth escapes by flood and fire.

“It’s cold enough yet to make a fire a very pleasant comrade—w’en ’e’s inside the bars,” observed David.

“H’m,” replied Crashington.

As this was not a satisfactory reply, David said so, and remarked, further, that Ned seemed to be in the blues.

“Wotever can be the matter wi’ you, Ned,” said David, looking at his companion with a perplexed air; “you’re a young, smart, ’ealthy fellar, in a business quite to your mind, an’ with a good-lookin’ young wife at ’ome, not to mention a babby. W’y wot more would you ’ave, Ned? You didn’t ought for to look blue.”

“Pr’aps not,” replied Ned, re-lighting his pipe, and puffing between sentences, “but a man may be in a business quite to his mind and have a good-looking wife, and a babby, and health to boot, without bein’ exactly safe from an attack of the blues now and then, d’ye see? ‘It ain’t all gold that glitters.’ You’ve heard o’ that proverb, no doubt?”

“Well, yes,” replied Clazie.

“Ah. Then there’s another sayin’ which mayhap you’ve heard of too: ‘every man’s got a skeleton in the cupboard.’”

“I’ve heard o’ that likewise,” said Clazie, “but it ain’t true; leastways, I have got no skeleton in none o’ my cupboards, an’, wot’s more, if I ’ad, I’d pitch him overboard.”

“But what if he was too strong for you?” suggested Ned.

“Why, then—I don’t know,” said Clazie, shaking his head.

Before this knotty point could be settled in a satisfactory manner, the comrades were interrupted by the entrance of a man. He was a thick-set, ill-favoured fellow, with garments of a disreputable appearance, and had a slouch that induced honest men to avoid his company. Nevertheless, Ned Crashington gave him a hearty “good afternoon,” and shook hands.

“My brother-in-law, Clazie,” said Ned, turning and introducing him, “Mr Sparks.”

Clazie was about to say he “was ’appy to,” etcetera, but thought better of it, and merely nodded as he turned to the grate and shook the ashes out of his pipe.

“You’ll come and have a cup of tea, Phil? Maggie and I usually have it about this time.”

Phil Sparks said he had no objection to tea, and left the station with Ned, leaving David Clazie shaking his head with a look of profound wisdom.

“You’re a bad lot, you are,” growled David, after the man was gone, “a werry bad lot, indeed!”

Having expressed his opinion to the clock, for there was no one else present, David thrust both hands into his pockets, and went out to take an observation of the weather.

Meanwhile Ned Crashington led his brother-in-law to his residence, which, like the abodes of the other firemen, was close at hand. Entering it he found his “skeleton” waiting for him in the shape of his wife. She was anything but a skeleton in aspect, being a stout, handsome woman, with a fine figure, an aquiline nose, and glittering black eyes.

“Oh, you’ve come at last,” she said in a sharp, querulous tone, almost before her husband had entered the room. “Full ten minutes late, and I expected you sooner than usual to-night.”

“I didn’t know you expected me sooner, Maggie. Here’s Phil come to have tea with us.”

“Oh, Phil, how are you?” said Mrs Crashington, greeting her brother with a smile, and shaking him heartily by the hand.

“Ah, if you’d only receive me with a smile like that, how different it might be,” thought Ned; but he said nothing.

“Now, then, stoopid,” cried Mrs Crashington, turning quickly round on her husband, as if to counteract the little touch of amiability into which she had been betrayed, “how long are you going to stand there in people’s way staring at the fire? What are you thinking of?”

“I was thinking of you, Maggie.”

“H’m! thinking no good of me, I dare say,” replied Maggie, sharply.

“Did your conscience tell you that?” asked Ned, with a heightened colour.

Maggie made no reply. One secret of her bad temper was that she had all her life been allowed to vent it, and now that she was married she felt the necessity of restraining it very irksome. Whenever she had gone far enough with Ned, and saw that he was not to be trifled with, she found that she possessed not only power to control her temper, but the sense, now and then, to do so! On the present occasion she at once busied herself in preparing tea, while Ned sat down opposite his brother-in-law, and, taking Fred, his only child, a handsome boy of about five years of age, on his knee, began to run his fingers through his jet black curly hair.

“Did you get your tasks well to-day, Fred?” asked Ned.

“No, father.”

“No?” repeated Ned in surprise; “why not?”

“Because I was playin’ with May Dashwood, father.”

“Was that a good reason for neglecting your dooty?” demanded Ned, shaking his head reproachfully, yet smiling in spite of himself.

“Iss, father,” replied the boy boldly.

“You’re wrong, Fred. No doubt you might have had a worse reason, but play is not a good reason for neglect of dooty. Only think—what would be said to me if I was called to a fire, and didn’t go because I wanted to play with May Dashwood?”

“But I was sent for,” pleaded Fred. “Mrs Dashwood had a big—oh, such a big washin’, an’ sent to say if I might be let go; an’ mother said I might, so I went.”

“Ah, that alters the case, Fred,” replied his father, patting the boy’s head. “To help a woman in difficulties justifies a’most anything. Don’t it, Phil?”

Thus appealed to, Phil said that he didn’t know, and, what was more, he didn’t care.

“Now don’t sit talkin’ nonsense, but sit in to tea,” said Mrs Crashington.

The stout fireman’s natural amiability had been returning like a flood while he conversed with Fred, but this sharp summons rather checked its flow; and when he was told in an exasperating tone to hand the toast, and not look like a stuck pig, it was fairly stopped, and his spirit sank to zero.

“Have you got anything to do yet?” he asked of Phil Sparks, by way of cheering up a little.

“No, nothin’,” replied Sparks; “leastways nothin’ worth mentionin’.”

“I knew his last application would fail,” observed Maggie, in a quietly contemptuous tone.

His last application had been made through Ned’s influence and advice, and that is how she came to know it would fail.

Ned felt a rising of indignation within him which he found it difficult to choke down, because it was solely for his wife’s sake that he had made any effort at all to give a helping hand to surly Phil Sparks, for whom he entertained no personal regard. But Ned managed to keep his mouth shut. Although a