men mount their boxes. Bing! Bing! Bing! They're off! The horses tear down the

street like mad. Bing! Bing! Bing! goes the gong!

 

"Get out of the track! The engines are coming! For God's sake, snatch that child

from the road!"

 

On, on, wildly, resolutely, madly fly the steeds. Bing! Bing! the gong. Away

dash the horses on the wings of fevered fury. On whirls the machine, down

streets, around corners, up this avenue and across that one, out into the very

bowels of darkness, whiffing, wheezing, shooting a million sparks from the

stack, paving the path of startled night with a galaxy of stars. Over the

house-tops to the north, a volcanic burst of flame shoots out, belching with

blinding effect. The sky is ablaze. A tenement house is burning. Five hundred

souls are in peril. Merciful Heaven! Spare the victims! Are the engines coming?

Yes, here they are, dashing down the street. Look! the horses ride upon the

wind; eyes bulging like balls of fire; nostrils wide open. A palpitating billow

of fire, rolling, plunging, bounding rising, falling, swelling, heaving, and

with mad passion bursting its red-hot sides asunder, reaching out its arms,

encircling, squeezing, grabbing up, swallowing everything before it with the

hot, greedy mouth of an appalling monster.

 

How the horses dash around the corner! Animal instinct say you? Aye, more. Brute

reason.

 

"Up the ladders, men!"