When Bob left the prize-fighter, he called the office and reported to
Dade. “Dungan speaking,” he said.
“What you got?” Dade asked hurriedly.
“Jack Brenton. Got his story. About his wife. Good stuff....”
Dade interrupted. “Never mind that now,” he directed. “There’s a big
fire in that block of lofts on Chambers Street. Hop a taxi and get there
quick as you can. Get busy, Bob.”
Bob said crisply: “‘Right!” He heard the receiver click as Dade hung up.
Five minutes later he had located a taxi and was racing toward the fire.
As he drew near, he saw the column of smoke that rose from the burning
building, black against the sky. “Two or three alarms,” he estimated,
out of his long experience in such matters. “Lot of girls working in
there, too. Probably caught some of them. Damned rat-hole....”
He had not enough cash in his pocket to pay the taxi fare; so he showed
the man his badge and said curtly: “Charge _Chronicle_.” Then he began
to worm through the crowd toward the fire. His badge passed him through
the fire-lines, into the smother of smoke and the tumult of voices and
the throbbing rhythm of the engines. The loft building was five stories
high; and when Bob looked up, he saw, as the smoke thinned and left
vistas, the red of flames in every window on the upper floors. Beside an
empty hose-wagon, he came upon Brett of the _Journal_, and asked him:
“Anybody caught!”
Brett shook his head. “Seven rescues,” he said. “Fire started on the top
floor, so they mostly had time to run.”
“Got the names?” Bob asked.
“Jake’s got ’em,” said Brett. Jake was the _Chronicle’s_ police
reporter. “He’s gone to telephone them in.”
Bob nodded. Jake was a good man. He would have picked up enough of
incident and accident to make a story. The rewrite men in the office
would do the rest. His, Bob’s, job was to look for a feature the other
men might have overlooked.... And abruptly, he remembered Dade’s
instructions to Ingalls that morning. Fire escapes; fire-doors. Were
they adequate, on this old trap?
There was an alley beside the burning building. He could work in through
there and find out, perhaps.... At the mouth of the alley a policeman
halted him. Bob showed his fire badge. The policeman said scornfully: “I
don’t give a damn for that. That wall in there is going to fall in a
minute.”
Bob laughed. “I was covering fires when you were in the cradle, old
man,” he said, and slipped by, into the alley. The officer started to
pursue, swore, changed his mind, returned to his post. The alley was not
an attractive place to enter. It was full of smoke, and sprinkled with
bits of glass that still tinkled down in a steady rain from the
shattered windows above; and as he had said, the upper part of the wall
had been gnawed by the fire till it was like to fall at any moment.
In spite of this, Bob went in. He was not afraid, and he was not
excited, and he was not valorous. He was simply matter of fact. The
smoke made him cough, and burned his eyes. Nevertheless he located the
fire-escape, where it came zigzagging down the wall. Its ladder swung
seven feet above the sidewalk. He got a barrel and climbed upon it and
so reached the ladder.
He scaled the ladder to the second floor landing. He found there a
blank, iron-sheathed door. Locked. He could not move it. “But it
probably opens from the inside,” he reminded himself. “Let’s see.”
There was no window on this floor; he looked up and discovered that from
the landing above he could reach a window. Flames were streaming thinly
out of windows ten feet above that landing. Nevertheless, Bob did not
hesitate. He climbed, straddled the iron rail, kicked in a pane of glass
and pushed the sash up. The room within was full of eddying smoke; Bob
crawled inside. He wished to reach the hall, test the doors that opened
upon the fire-escape from the inside.
Smoke in the room was thick, so he crouched below it and slipped out
into the hall. When he reached the door, he found it adequately equipped
with patent bolts of the sort that yielded at a tug. He tried them; the
door swung open. The bolts, he saw, were recently installed and in good
condition.... The open door had created a draft. Smoke, with a hot
breath of fire in it, began to pour past him and out through the door.
Fire-escapes all right; doors all right. No story. Time to get out, he
decided.
To do so it was necessary to traverse the building. He did this. Bob had
seen fires before. Experience and instinct guided him safely. On the
stairs he found lines of hose leading up to where a squad of firemen
were fighting the fire from within. He followed the hose down and to the
front door and so to the street.
The fire, for newspaper purposes, was over. Three alarms, seven rescues,
a hundred thousand damage.... Bob telephoned the office. Dade asked:
“How about fire-escapes?”
“I looked at them,” Bob said casually. “They’re O. K. Fire-doors all
right, too.” Dade said: “Well, you might as well come in.”
V
Bob brushed his clothes and washed his face and hands in a hotel
wash-room before he returned to the office. When he came into the City
Room, no one paid him any attention. He went to his desk and wrote the
story of Jack Brenton’s wife, and handed the manuscript to Dade. The
City Editor scanned the pages with swift eyes, said over his shoulder:
“Good stuff, Bob.” Then tossed the story to the copy-desk. “Top 7,” he
directed. “Good little local story. But you’d better cut it down. Half a
column’s enough.”
Bob went back to his desk. He was beginning to feel the reaction; he was
somewhat tired. So for a little while he sat idly, doing nothing at all.
Then Boswell, the publisher, came in from the corridor; and Bob saw him,
and turned to his typewriter, and inserted a sheet of paper, and began
to write. He wrote, over and over again:
_“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”_
The little old reporter wished to appear busy. He was, you see, a good
deal of a coward; he was desperately afraid of being fired.