Years passed away, and with them many old things vanished, while many novelties appeared, but the Red Brigade remained much as it was, excepting that it was, if possible, smarter and more energetic than ever.  
In the lobby of our West-end station one pleasant summer evening, the men sat and stood about the open door beside the trim engines and matériel of their profession, chatting heartily as men are won’t to do when in high health and spirits. There were new faces among them, but there were also several that had long been familiar there. The stalwart form of Joe Dashwood was there, so little altered by time that there was nothing about him to tell that he was passing the period of middle-age, save a few grey hairs that mingled here and there with the dark curls on his temples. Bob Clazie was there also, but he had not stood the trials of his profession so well as Joe—probably his constitution was not so strong. A disagreeable short cough harassed him, though he made light of it. Frequent scorching, smoking, and partial suffocation had increased his wrinkles and rendered his eyelids permanently red. Nevertheless, although nearly fifty years old, Bob Clazie was still one of the best men in the Brigade.
 
Joe Dashwood wore a pair of brass epaulettes on his shoulders, which indicated that he had attained to the highest rank in the service, short of the chief command.
 
He was giving directions to one of the younger men of the force, when a tall strapping young man, with a plain but open and singularly pleasing countenance entered, and going up to him shook him warmly by the hand.
 
“Well, Bob, what’s the news? you seem excited this evening,” said Joe.
 
“So I am, Joe; and with good reason too, for several pleasant things have happened to-day. In the first place, my friend and patron—”
 
“That’s the old gentleman with the ruddy face and the bald head?” interrupted Joe.
 
“Yes, and with the kind heart. Don’t ever omit the kind heart, Joe, in your description of him, else you’ll only have painted half the portrait.”
 
“Well, but the kind heart ain’t quite so visible at first sight as the ruddy face and bald head, you know.”
 
“Perhaps not; but if you watched him long enough to see him act, you’d perceive the kind heart as plain as if it hung at his button-hole, and beat like a sixty-horse-power steam-engine outside his ribs instead of inside,” said the strapping young man with quite a glow of enthusiasm. “Oh, if you could only see how that old gentleman labours, and strives, and wears himself out, in his desire to rescue what they call our Street Arabs, you couldn’t help loving him as I do. But I’m wandering from the pleasant things I’ve got to tell about. Through his influence my friend Jim has obtained a good appointment on the Metropolitan Railway, which gives him a much better salary than he had in Skrimp’s office, and opens up a prospect of promotion; so, although it sends him underground before his natural time, he says he is quite content to be buried alive, especially as it makes the prospect of his union with a very small and exceedingly charming little girl with black eyes not quite so remote as it was. In the second place, you’ll be glad to hear that the directors of the insurance office with which I am connected have raised my salary, influenced thereto by the same old gentleman with the ruddy face, bald head, and kind heart—”
 
“Coupled with your own merits, Bob,” suggested Joe.
 
“I know nothing about that,” replied the strapping young man with a smile, “but these pleasant pieces of good fortune have enabled me and Jim to carry out a plan which we have long cherished—to lodge together, with Martha Reading as our landlady. In truth, anticipating some such good fortune as has been sent to us, we had some time ago devoted part of our savings to the purpose of rescuing poor Martha from that miserable needlework which has been slowly killing her so long. We have taken and furnished a small house, Martha is already installed as the owner, and we go there to-night for the first time, as lodgers.”
 
“You don’t say so!” exclaimed Joe, laughing; “why, Bob, you and your friend act with as much promptitude as if you had been regularly trained in the Fire-Brigade.”
 
“We received much of our training from it, if not in it,” returned the strapping young man with the plain but pleasant countenance. “Don’t you remember, Joe, how perseveringly we followed you in former days when I was the Bloater and he was Little Jim?”
 
“Remember it! I should think I do,” replied Joe. “How glad my Mary will be when she hears what you have done.”
 
“But that’s not all my news,” continued the Bloater, (if we may presume to use the old name). “Last, but not least, Fred has asked me to be his groom’s-man. He wrote me a very pathetic letter about it, but omitted to mention the day—not to be wondered at in the circumstances. Poor Fred, his letter reminded me of the blotted copies which I used to write with such trouble and sorrow at the training school to which my patron sent me.”
 
“There’s reason for the blotted letter besides the excitement of his approaching marriage,” said Joe. “He hurt his hand the last fire he attended, and it’s in a sling just now, so he must have taken it out, for temporary duty when he wrote to you. The truth is that Fred is too reckless for a fireman. He’s scarcely cool enough. But I can inform you as to the day; it is Thursday next. See that you are up to time, Bob.”
 
“No fear of me being late,” replied the Bloater. “By the way, have you heard of that new method of putting out fires that somebody has invented?”
 
“I did hear of some nonsensical plan,” replied Joe, with a slight expression of contempt, “but I don’t think it worth while to pay attention to things o’ this sort. There’s nothin’ can beat good cold water.”
 
“I’m not so sure of that, Joe,” replied his friend gravely. “I have been reading an account of it in the Insurance Guardian, and it seems to me that there is something worth attending to in the new plan. It looks as if there was life in it, for a company is to be got up called the ‘Fire and Water Company.’”
 
“But what is this new plan?” asked Joe, sending forth a violent puff from his pipe, as if to indicate that it would all end in smoke.
 
“Well, I’m not sure that I’ve got a correct notion of it myself, but my impression is that carbonic acid gas is the foundation-principle of it. Fire cannot exist in the presence of this gas—wherever it goes extinction of fire is instantaneous, which is more than you can say for water, Joe; for as you know well, fire, when strong enough, can turn that into steam as fast as you can pour it on, and after getting rid of it in this way, blaze up as furious as ever. What this company proposes to do is to saturate water with this carbonic acid gas mixed with nitrogen, and then pour that prepared water on fires. Of course, if much water were required, such a plan would never succeed, but a very small quantity is said to be sufficient. It seems that some testing experiments of a very satisfactory kind have been made recently—so you see, Joe, it is time to be looking out for a new profession!”
 
“H’m. I’ll stick to the old brigade, at all events till the new company beats us from the field. Perhaps when that happens they’ll enrol some of us to work the—what d’ye call ’em?—soda-water engines. They’ll have engines of course, I suppose?”
 
“Of course,” replied the Bloater; “moreover, they mean to turn their prepared water to good account when there are no fires to put out. It is said that the proportions of the mixture can be so varied that, with one kind, the pump may be used for the clarification of beer, oils, treacle, quicksilver, and such like, and for the preservation of fruit, meat, milk, etcetera, and with another mixture they propose to ventilate mines and tunnels; water gardens; kill insects on trees and flowers; soften water for domestic uses, and breweries, and manufacture soda-water, seltzer water, and other aerated beverages—”
 
“Oh, I say, Bob, hold on,” cried Joe; “you seem to forget that my capacity for swallowing is limited.”
 
“Well, perhaps you’ll get it enlarged enough before long, to swallow all that and a deal more,” said the Bloater, with a half serious air. “Meanwhile I’ll continue to wish all success and prosperity to the Red Brigade—though you do cause a tremendous amount of damage by your floods of water, as we poor insurance companies know. Why, if it were not for the heroes of the salvage corps we should be ruined altogether. It’s my opinion, Joe, that the men of the salvage corps run quite as much risk as your fellows do in going through fire and smoke and working among falling beams and tumbling walls in order to cover goods with their tarpaulins and protect them from water.”
 
“I admit that the salvage men do their work like heroes,” said Joe; “but if you would read our chief’s report for last year, you would see that we do our best to put out fires with the smallest possible amount of water. Why, we only used about eleven million gallons in the last twelve months—a most insignificant quantity that, for the amount of work done!”
 
A tinkle of the telegraph bell here cut short the conversation. “Fire, in the Mall, Kensington,” was the signal.
 
“Get her out, lads!” cried Joe, referring to the engine.
 
H............