If there is anything the young men of Rescue Hose Company pride themselves
upon, it is in getting themselves up, regardless of expense, on New Year's
day, and calling upon their lady friends. On Monday last these young men
arrayed themselves in their best clothes and sat around in stores and
waited for the time to go calling. Solomon in all his glory, was not
arrayed like one of these firemen.
[Illustration: SWALLOW-TAILS ON THE CLIMB.]
Just as the young gentlemen were about throwing away their last cigar at
noon, preparatory to calling at the first place on the list, the fire-bell
rang, and there was a lively procession followed the steamer down Fourth
street in a few minutes. It looked as though a wedding had been broken up
and bridegrooms were running around loose. The party arrived at the scene
of the fire, which was Matt. Larsen's hotel on the corner of Second and
King streets, and such a shinning of swallow-tailed coats up blue ladders
was never seen. The fellows that belonged in the house threw out bedsteads
and crockery on to stove-pipe hats, and emptied beds on to
broadcloth coats. The wedding party disappeared in the third story window
with the hose, in the smoke, and after half an hour's work they came out
looking as though they had been in the Ashtabula railroad accident. Young
Mr. Smith had a stream of dirty water sent up his trousers leg, which went
clear up to his collar, and wilted it beyond repair. Mr. Hatch entwined
his doeskin pants around the burnt ridge-pole of the roof, hung on to a
rafter with his teeth, and chopped shingles, and the pipemen kept him wet,
and he looked like a bundle of damp stuff in a paper mill. Mr. Spence was
on the top of the ladder, and Mr. Drummond was next below him. In falling,
Mr. D. caught hold of one tail of Mr. Spence's swallow hammer coat, and
stretched the tail about two feet longer than the other. Mr. Foote was as
dry as a bone, until the pipeman saw him, and they nailed him up against
the wall with a stream and Foote was damp as a wet nurse in a minute.
Young Mr. Osborne, confidential adviser of Hyde, Cargill & Co., got half
way up the ladder, and a leak in the hose struck him and froze him to the
ladder, and Mr. Watson had to strike a match and thaw him loose. He wet
his pants from Genesis to Revelations, and had to go calling with an
ulster overcoat on. The most of the young men, after returning from the
fire, stood by the stove and dried themselves, and went calling all the
same, but the girls said they smelt like burnt shingles. The boys were all
dry enough at the dance in the evening.