I found refusals were of no avail, so I agreed. At one I entered the club, at two minutes past one James B. Brown entered, and we met. He was my first host of the previous evening!
We were formally introduced. I smiled--James B. Brown didn't. James B. Brown pulled himself up to his full height--about double mine--I never felt so small before. I shook his hand (he didn't shake mine) and said:
"This is a great honour and pleasant surprise," and I pulled the dismayed celebrity gently to my side, when getting on tip-toes I telephoned up the string of his eye-glass:
"Keep up the joke, Mr. Brown, keep it up. Fact is, I was so delighted at meeting you last night and so charmed with you that when I was asked if I had met you before I said 'No,' so that I might have the pleasure of meeting you again. Forgive me!"
James B. Brown shook my hand warmly, and telephoned down:
"Sir, this is the greatest compliment I have ever received. Your sin will be forgiven for your sincere flattery of so humble an admirer as myself."
Americans claim to be superior to us in respect of three things--their facility in travelling, their fire system, and their after-dinner speaking. One of these I will not question, and that is the Fire Brigade. It is necessary for America to excel in this respect, for with their huge warehouses and stores overstocked with inflammable goods fire would destroy their cities as Chicago was destroyed, were they not so wonderfully prompt and efficient with their engines and appliances.
When I arrived in the States I only presented two of the very numerous letters of introduction with which I was supplied. One was to the Chief of Police in New York, and the other was to the Captain of the Fire Brigade. The latter I met, when I arrived at the station at which he is located, just coming out in ordinary clothes, for it was his night off; but such is the pride taken by the Fire Brigade in their work that whatever engagement he was going to keep was abandoned, and he was at my service until I had seen everything it was possible to see in connection with the famous Fire Brigade.
As I was speaking to the Captain in the engine-room I noticed a couple of horses standing there. One of them was a grey mare with a most cunning look, and as the Captain was informing me that "she had done continuous work here for some years," she gave me an artful wink of confirmation. Just at that moment the alarm bell suddenly vibrated, and before you could say Jack Robinson (even if you wanted to), seemingly by magic but in reality by electricity, the halters fell from the horses' heads, and to my surprise, without any one being near them they rushed to their places at either side of the shaft of the engine. There were manholes in the ceiling, through which brass rods were suspended vertically. Down these slid half-dressed men, who seemed to turn a somersault into their clothes during the descent on to the engine, the harness suspended above the horses dropped on to their backs, and in an instant they were in the street, the engine manned, its fire ablaze, and the horses alive to the stiff job they had before them of reaching the fire in an incredibly short space of time. But hardly had they taken the first leap from one of the boulders over the cavities with which New York streets abound to another, than a whistle from the Captain stopped them. It was a false alarm given for my edification. Before they could get back into the engine-house I was conducted by the Captain into the dormitory, where I concealed myself under a bed. Without a grumble the men came up and literally walked out of their clothes, for boots, pants and everything are all one piece. They opened these carefully and laid them ready by the side of their beds, and in a few minutes were all snoring fast asleep.