Affairs for the Keiths passed through another week of what might be
called the transition stage. It took them that long to settle down in
their new house and into some semblance of a routine--two days to the
actual installation, and the evenings full of small matters to arrange.
Nan was busy all day long playing with her new toy. The housekeeping
was fascinating, and Wing Sam a mixture of delight and despair. Like
most women who have led the sheltered life, she had not realized as yet
that the customs of her own fraction of one per cent, were not
immutable. Therefore, she tried to model the household exactly in the
pattern of those to which she had been accustomed. Wing Sam blandly
refused to be moulded.
Thus Nan spent all one morning drilling him in the proper etiquette of
answering doors. Mindful of John McGlynn's advice, she did this by
precept, ringing her own door bell, presenting a card as though calling
on herself. Wing Sam's placid exterior changed not. A half hour later
the door bell rang, but no Wing Sam appeared to answer it. It rang
again, and again, until Nan herself opened the door. On the doorstep
stood Wing Sam himself.
"I foolee you, too," he announced with huge delight.
Painstakingly Nan conveyed to him that this was neither an amusing game
nor a practical joke. Later in the day the door bell rang again. Nan,
hovering near to gauge the result of her training, saw Wing Sam plant
himself firmly in the opening.
"You got ticket?" he demanded sternly of the deliveryman outside. "You
no got ticket, you no get in!"
Which, Nan rather hysterically gathered, was what Wing Sam had gained
of the calling-card idea. After that, temporarily as she thought, Nan
permitted him to go back to his own method, which, had she known it,
was the method of every Chinese servant in California. The visitor
found his bell answered by a blandly smiling Wing Sam, who cheerfully
remarked: "Hullo!" It was friendly, and it didn't matter; but at that
stage of her development Nan was more or less scandalized.
Nan's sense of humour always came to her assistance by evening, and she
had many amusing anecdotes to tell Keith, over which both of them
laughed merrily. Gringo added somewhat to the complications in life. He
was a fat, roly-poly, soft-boned, ingratiating puppy, with a tail that
waved energetically but uncontrolledly. Gringo at times was very
naughty, and very much in the way. But when exasperation turned to
vengeance he had a way of keeling over on his back, spreading his hind
legs apart in a manner to expose his stomach freely to brutal assault,
and casting one calm china-blue eye upward.
"Can there anywhere exist any one so hard-hearted as to injure a poor,
absolutely defenceless dog?" he inquired, with full confidence in the
answer.
The iniquities of Gringo and the eccentricities of Wing Sam Nan
detailed at length, and also her experiences with the natives. She as
yet looked on every one as natives. Only later could she expand to the
point of including them in her cosmos of people. Nan was transplanted,
and her roots had not yet struck down into the soil. In her shopping
peregrinations she was making casual acquaintance, and she had not yet
become accustomed to it.
"I bought some darling little casseroles at Phelan's to-day," she said.
"The whole Phelan family waited on me. Where do you suppose the women
get their perfectly awful clothes? Mrs. Phelan offered to take me to
her milliner!" or "You know Wilkins--the furniture man where we got the
big armchair? I was in there to-day, and he apologized because his wife
hadn't called!"
They went to bed early, because they were both very tired.
Keith also had generally passed an interesting day. Immediately after
breakfast he went to his office, and conscientiously sat a while.
Sometimes he wrote letters or cast up accounts; but there could not be
much of this to do. About ten or eleven o'clock his impatient
temperament had had enough of this, so he drifted over to the
Monumental engine house. After considerable thought he had decided to
join this company. It represented about the class of men with whom he
wanted to affiliate himself--the influential men of the lawyer,
Southern-politician, large business men type. There were many of these
volunteer organizations. Their main purpose was to fight fire; but they
subserved other objects as well--political, social, and financial.
David Broderick, for example, already hated and feared, partly owned
and financed a company of ward-heelers who were introducing and
establishing the Tammany type of spoils politics. Casey, later in
serious trouble, practically manipulated another.
Among the Monumentals, Keith delighted especially in Bert Taylor. Bert
Taylor likewise delighted in Keith. The little chubby man's enthusiasm
for the company, while recognized as most valuable to the company's
welfare, had ended by boring most of the company's members. But Keith
was a new listener and avid for information. He had had no notion of
how complicated the whole matter could be. Bert Taylor dissertated
sometimes on one phase of the subject, sometimes on another.
"It's drills we need, and the fellows won't drill enough!" was Bert
Taylor's constant complaint. "What do they know about hose? They run it
out any way it comes; and roll it up anyhow, instead of doing a proper
job."
"How should you do it?" asked Keith.
"It ought to be laid right--so there's no bends or sharp angles in it;
it should never be laid over heaps of stones, or any kind of uneven
surface--it all increases the water resistance. If there are any bends
or curves they should be regular and even. The hose ought never to rest
against a sharp edge or angle. And when you coil it up you ought to
reverse the sides every time, so it will wear even and stretch even. Do
they do it? Not unless I stand over them with a club!"
He showed Keith the hose, made of India rubber, a comparatively new
thing, for heretofore hose had been made of riveted leather. Bert
Taylor made him feel the inside of this hose with his forefinger to
test its superlative smoothness.
"Mighty little resistance there!" he cried triumphantly.
The nozzles, all in racks, he handled with almost reverent care.
"These are the boys that cost the money," said Taylor. "If the inside
isn't polished like a mirror the water doesn't come smooth. And the
least little dent makes the stream ragged and broken. Nothing looks
worse--and it isn't as effective on the fire. It ought to be thrown
like a solid rod of water. I can't get the boys to realize that the
slightest bruise, dent, or burr throws the stream in a ragged feathery
foam. The result of that is that a lot of water is dissipated and lost."
Keith, who had taken hold of the nozzle rather negligently, returned it
with the reverent care due crown jewels.
"How long a stream will it throw?" he asked.
"With thirty men on a side she's done a hundred and twelve feet high,
and two hundred and eighteen for distance," said Bert with simple pride.
He picked up the nozzle again.
"See here. Here's an invention of my own. Cost money to put it in, too,
because every other nozzle on earth is made wrong."
He explained that other nozzles are made so that the thread of the hose
screwed into the nozzle; while in his, the thread of the nozzle screwed
into the hose.
"If there's a leak or a bad connection," explained Bert, "with the old
type, the water is blown back into the fireman's face, and he is
blinded. His whole efficiency depends on a close joint. But with my
scheme the leak is blown forward, away from the lineman. It's a
perfectly sound scheme, but I can't make them see it."
"Sounds reasonable," observed Keith, examining perfunctorily a device
to which later he was to owe his life.
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 California courts. Even in the most law-ridden times
elsewhere a certain check has been exercised by public opinion or the
presence of business interests. But here was as yet no public opinion;
and business interests, their energies fully taxed by the necessities
of a new country, were willing to pay heavily to be let alone.
Consequently, lawyers were permitted to play out their fascinating game
to their hearts' content, and totally without reference to expedience
or to the justice of the case. The battles were indeed intensely
technical and shadowy. Points within points were fought bitterly. Often
for days the real case at issue was forgotten.
Only one of the more obvious instances of technical triumph need be
cited. One man killed another, on a public street, before many
witnesses. The indictment was, however, thrown out and he released
because it stated only that the victim was killed by a pistol, and
failed to specify that his death was due to the discharge of said
pistol. The lawyer who evolved this brilliant idea was greatly admired
and warmly congratulated.
The wheels of the law ground very slowly. One of the simplest and most
effective expedients of defence was delay. A case could be postponed
and remanded, often until the witnesses were scattered or influenced.
But there were infinite numbers of legal expedients, all most
interesting to a man of Keith's profession. His sense of justice was
naturally strong and warm, and an appeal to it outside a courtroom or a
law office always got an immediate and commonsense response. But inside
the law his mind automatically closed, and a "case" could have only
legal aspects. Which is true of the majority of lawyers to-day.
On the adjournment of court Keith generally drifted over to the El
Dorado or the Empire, where he spent an hour or so loafing with some of
his numerous acquaintances. He was of the temperament that makes itself
quickly popular, the laughing, hearty sort, full of badinage, and
genuinely liking most men with whom he came in contact. There was
always much joking in the air, but back of it was a certain reserve, a
certain wariness, for every second man was a professed "fire-eater,"
given to feeling insulted on the slightest grounds, and flying to the
duel or the street fight instanter.
This hour was always most pleasant to Keith; nevertheless, he went home
about five o'clock in order to enjoy an hour or so of daylight about
the place. He performed prodigies of digging in the new garden:
constructing terraces, flower beds, walks, and the like. While the
actual construction work was under way he was greatly interested, but
cared nothing for the finished product or the mere growing of the
flowers.
Gringo received his share of training, at first to his intense disgust.
Twice he refused obedience, and the matter being pressed, resorted to
the simple expedient of retiring from the scene. Keith dropped
everything and pursued. Gringo crawled under things, but was followed
even to the dustiest and cob-webbiest farthest corner under the porch;
he tried swiftness and dodging, but was trailed in all his doublings
and twistings at top speed; he tried running straight away over the
sand hills, and at first left his horrible master behind, but the
horrible master possessed a horrible persistence. Finally he shut his
eyes and squatted, expecting instant annihilation, but instead was
haled back to the exact scene of his disobedience, and the command
repeated. Nan laughed until the tears came, over the large, warm,
red-faced man after the small, obstinate, scared pup, but Keith refused
to joke.
"If he finds he can't get away, no matter what happens, I'll never have
to do it again," he panted. "But if he wins out, even once, it'll be an
awful job."
Gringo tried twice. Then, his faith in his ability to escape completely
shattered, he gave up. After that he adored Keith and was always under
his feet.
Keith saw nothing of any of the women. Mrs. Sherwood seemed to have
dropped from their ken when they left the hotel. Once Keith inquired
casually about Mrs. Morrell.
"She's been over twice to see the place," replied Nan.
"We ought to go over there to call," proffered Keith vaguely; but there
the matter rested.