A Little Domestic Chit-Chat.  
One night, not long after the events narrated in the last chapter, Frank Willders was standing with the fireman-in-charge in the King Street Station. He had just removed his helmet, and the perspiration on his brow showed that he had been but recently engaged in some active duty; as indeed was the case, for he had just returned from a “walk” to a fire in Whitechapel.
 
“It was only a small affair,” said Frank, hanging up his helmet and axe, and sitting down to fill his pipe; “a low beer-shop in Brook Street; the taproom burnt out, and the rest of the house damaged by smoke. It was pretty well over before I got there, and I left half an hour after. Where are the rest o’ the lads?”
 
“They’re out wi’ both engines,” said Baxmore, who was busy making a memorandum on a slate.
 
“With both engines!” said Frank.
 
“Ay, both,” replied Baxmore, with a laugh, as he sat down in front of the fire. “Let me see; it’s now nine o’clock, so they’ve bin off an hour; one to Walton Street, Brompton; the other to Porchester Terrace, Bayswater. The call was the queerest I’ve seen for many a day. We was all sittin’ here smokin’ our pipes, as usual, when two fellers came to the door, full split, from opposite pints o’ the compass, an’ run slap into each other. They looked like gentlemen; but they was in such a state it wasn’t easy to make out what sort o’ fish they was. One had his coat torn and his hat gone; the other had his tile pretty well knocked down on his eyes—I s’pose by the people he run into on the way—an’ both were half-mad with excitement. They both stuttered, too—that was the fun o’ the thing, and they seemed to think each was takin’ off the other, and got into a most awful rage. My own opinion is, that one stuttered by nature, an’ the other stuttered from fright. Anyhow, they both stuttered together, and a precious mess they made of it.
 
“‘F–F–F–Fire!’ roared one.
 
“‘F–F–F–Fire!’ yelled the other.
 
“‘Where away?’ asked Mr Dale, looking quietly at the two men, who were gasping for breath.
 
“‘B–B–B–Brompton,’ ‘B–B–B–Bayswater!’ they shouted together; and then, turnin’ fiercely on each other, the one said ‘N–N–N–No!’ and the other said ‘N–N–N–No!’ ‘Now, which is it?’ said Dale, ‘an’ be quick—do.’
 
“‘B–B–B–Brompton!’
 
“‘B–B–B–Bayswater!’ in a breath; then says one, ‘I—I s–s–say Brompton!’ an’ the other, he says, ‘I—I s–s–say Bayswater!’
 
“At this they grew furious, and Dale tried to calm them and settle the question by asking the name of the street.
 
“‘W–W–Walton S–Street!’ cried one.
 
“‘P–P–P–Porchester T–T–Terrace!’ shouted the other.
 
“‘N–N–No!’ ‘Y–Y–Yes!’ ‘N–No!’ an’ with that, one up fist an’ hit the other a crack between the eyes. T’other returned on the nob, and then they closed.
 
“Before this Mr Dale had ordered out one o’ the engines, an’ when he heard the two streets named it occurred to him that there might be two fires, so he ordered out the other engine; and before we got the stutterers separated both engines were off full swing, one to Brompton, the other to Bayswater; but whether there are two fires or no is yet to be seen.”
 
Just as Baxmore concluded, the rattle of a returning engine was heard. Next moment it dashed up to the door, and the firemen, leaping off, streamed into the station, where; amid much comment and some laughter at the scene they had so recently witnessed, they hung up their helmets and crowded round the fire.
 
“So it was in Brompton, after all,” said Jack Williams, stirring the coals; “but it was a small affair in a baker’s shop, and we soon got it out.”
 
“Is the other engine back?” inquired Moxey.
 
“Here she comes to answer for herself,” said Mason, as the second engine dashed up to the station, and the men were joined by their comrades.
 
“We’ve got it out,” said Dale, sitting down before the desk to enter the particulars in his diary; “it was a private house, and well alight when we got there, but the Paddington engine was playing on it, and we soon got it under.”
 
“Faix, it’s well them stutterers didn’t kape us longer, else the whole house would have bin burnt out intirely,” observed Joe Corney, binding up a slight wound in his thumb, which he had received from a splinter.
 
Most of the men were more or less begrimed with charcoal and smoke, and otherwise bore marks of their recent sharp though short skirmish, but none of them deemed it necessary to remove these evidences of devotion to duty until they had refreshed themselves with a pipe.
 
“Were there people in the house?” inquired Frank.
 
“Ay, but Pickford was there with the escape, an’ got ’em all out before we came up,” said one.
 
“Pickford said he couldn’t help laughing after he got ’em out, at the remembrance o’ their faces. When he first went in they was all sound asleep in the top floor, for the smoke was only beginnin’ to show there, an’ the surprise they got when he jump in among ’em an’ shouted was wonderful to behold.”
 
“Not so wonderful,” observed Bill Moxey, “as the surprise I seed a whole man-o’-war’s crew get by consequence o’ the shout o’ one of her own men.”
 
“When was that? Let’s hear about it, Bill,” said Corney, stuffing down the tobacco in his pipe, and firing a battery of cloudlets into the air.
 
“We was in the Red Sea at the time,” said Moxey, clearing his throat, “layin’ at anchor, and a precious hot time we had of it. There was never a cloud a’most in the sky, and the sun was nigh hot enough to fry the decks off the ship. Cook said he’d half a mind to............