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Hannibal Trotter The Hero
by
Another door was shut against me. Still there were others left, and the house-on-fire line had a good deal to recommend it. It was a thing in which one could not well make a mistake. It had been possible, as I had found out by painful experience, to mistake the pranks of a lively swimmer for drowning, and the capers of a lively mare for bolting. But there was no mistaking a house on fire when you saw one. People in a burning house, moreover, would be likely to give every facility possible for their own rescue, and the chances were one would not find many competitors to deprive one of the glory. On the whole, I warmed up to this new opening considerably.
Of course one never has the good fortune to have a fire in one’s own house when it is wanted. It would have been exceedingly convenient for me to have to rescue my own family from the flames. As it was, I had to spend a good many dreary nights in the street in the neighbourhood of the fire alarms before I so much as smelt fire.
It was a good one when it came. A great warehouse in the City was gutted, and those who saw the blaze are not likely to forget it in a hurry. I saw it. I had scampered with all my might after one of the engines, but only to find a dense crowd on the spot before me. There was a wide circle kept round the place, and never did circus-goers fight for a front row in the gallery as did that crowd fight for a front place at this grand show.
It was nearly an hour before, by dint of squeezing, sneaking, fighting, and beseeching, I could get to the front. By that time the fire had done its worst. Still I had noted with satisfaction that no fire- escapes had yet been brought up, so that any unfortunate inmates were sure to be still safe for me. The firemen were playing on the flames with their hoses, and every now and then an alarm of a tottering wall sent them flying back to a safe distance. It was a grand opportunity for me to brave these poltroons on their own ground, and show them how a hero behaves at a fire.
So I took advantage of a policeman turning another way, to break bounds and run into the open space.
“Come back!” shouted the policeman.
“Come back!” yelled the mob.
“Mind the wall!” cried a fireman.
I was delighted, and already glowed with glory.
Alas! how soon our brightest hopes may be damped!
The fireman, seeing that I still advanced on the burning ruin, wheeled round on me with his hose, and before I could count five had drenched me through and through, and half-stunned me with the force of the water into the bargain.
The crowd screamed with laughter; the police seized me by all fours; the fireman executed a final solo on my retreating person, and the next thing I was aware of was being delivered at my own door from a four- wheeled cab, with my interest in conflagrations completely extinguished.
My faith in the history of heroism began to be a trifle shaken after this adventure. However, I was committed to a course of gallant action; and it were cowardice to lose heart after a rebuff or two. I must at any rate try my hand at a railway rescue before giving in.
In my studies I had only met with one successful case of extracting individuals from between the wheels of locomotives in motion, and therefore entered upon this branch of my experiments with considerable doubt. Nor did anything occur to remove that doubt. I watched the trains carefully for a month; and whenever I saw any one place himself near the edge of the platform as a train came up, I made a point of placing myself hard by. But we never got beyond the platform; and, indeed, the whole course of my experiments in this department resulted in nothing beyond my one day being knocked down by the unexpected opening of a carriage door; and on another occasion being nearly placed under arrest for clutching a man’s arm as the train came up, he said with intent “to chuck him on the line,” but as I told him, and unsuccessfully tried to explain to him, because he seemed to me to be about to be swept over by the engine.