"Well, we got through this, opened it up, and out it all came! No flames, just smoke, and with force to suffocate a man in a second. We backed out to the gutter and got a little fresh air in our lungs, and went at it again. We brought a thirty-five foot ladder over from the truck and lowered it through this opening, and found we couldn't touch bottom. A forty-five foot ladder was put down, and only three rungs remained above the sidewalk; this showed that there was over forty feet of cellar and sub-cellar! And down to this place we had to go with the line. Well, the sooner we got at it the sooner it was over, so, shifting the line over the top rung of the ladder, so it wouldn't get caught, down we started. It was only forty feet, but I can tell you it seemed like three hundred and forty before we got to the bottom. Of course, when we got there it wasn't so bad; the smoke lifted, and gave us a corner in the cellar shaft where we could work, and we soon drove the fire away to the rear and out; but going down we got a dose of smoke we'll all remember to our last days."

It is not alone in saving lives from fire that the firemen show of what heroic stuff they are made; in the simple discharge of their daily duty they are often forced to risk life over and over again in deeds of daring about which we hear little, deeds that are repeated at almost every serious fire to which they are called.

CHARLES T. HILL.

HE WHO HAS A THOUSAND FRIENDS

He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,

And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

A HERO OF THE FISHING FLEET

On one occasion our fleet was fishing on the shallow ground that stretches away off the "Sylt." Fish were plentiful then on the sandy ground there, but it was a big risk for so many vessels to go so far back in shallow water in a bight like that. We were

in all a hundred and thirty sail, yet we had such complete trust in the capability of our admiral, and were so keen on getting more fish than any one else, that in we all went. Our skipper ventured in the farthest of all, as he always did, without thought of consequences. We made a big haul that day, right in sight of the land. At sundown the wind was still off shore, and only a nice fresh fishing breeze at that. So the admiral showed his lights for a first night haul over the same ground, and we crept in even nearer under the shore. The wind freshened before midnight into a two-reef breeze, and some of the more cautious men hauled their nets and made a good offing for themselves. Not so our skipper. He was cheerily singing away in one of his reckless moods, and the little Osprey went flying along, her lee rail almost under water, but with never an inch of canvas shortened, for she was gathering the haddocks up into her net in a way that meant more comforts for the "Toebiters.'

Suddenly the wind chopped right round on to the land. Rockets at once flashed up

into the sky, telling the fleet to haul at once, and make for the open. The leemost vessels were ten miles from the admiral, however, and long before they got their nets on board a very nasty sea was running. For it took us a long while to haul, in those days, and a sea makes very quickly in shallow water. Our big catch now nearly proved our ruin, for "Darkie Jim" never lost a haddock that he could possibly save, and it took us full two hours to heave nearly three tons of fish aboard. There were no lights in sight when we started to beat to windward, for we learned afterwards that the skippers of no less than forty vessels had chopped away their valuable gear to save time, and perhaps their vessels and crews. Not so "Darkie Jim" : he wasn't built that way. But that is the only reason that, in spite of his gigantic strength and coolness, we were the last vessel to start into the wind's eye that night. After what seemed to me ages, we were at last all ready, and the bow-line was loosed, and away tore our stanch little craft.

It was pitch dark now, and we could neither see when we must tack nor tell

whether we were gaining or losing ground. To help the vessel do herself justice in that confined space, the skipper held on each way, till even down below we could hear the breakers on the land roaring above the howling of the storm. Having ordered all hands below, the skipper himself remained on deck, lashed to the wheel. Only at the moment we were head on to sea, at the tacks, were we allowed to rush forward and change over the sails. We hadn't shortened an inch of canvas, and now we could not if we wished to. Luckily our topsails had blown to rags and eased us a little, for the wind kept freshening. Of course we had all the driving power we could handle, and the only marvel was that none of the huge seas hit us, or came aboard. How many hundreds must just have missed us, I don't know. Now and again the tail end of a spiteful one that had missed us by not more than a yard or so, would drop a ton of water over our rail as it swung by, wash down the cabin stairway, and give us a foot of water on the floor to show us what it could have done, if only it had hit us fair and square.