"Fireman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the blast of a trumpet, and all the old feelings, which had lain dormant for many years, were revived, and I wished that I had an engine and a brave company, to rush to the rescue. While I stood surveying the flames, I was joined by Fred, an old fireman like myself, but cooler, and not ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... this was regular programme, as I had explained to Miss Cullen, but here had been a variation which I had never heard of being done, and of which I couldn't fathom the object. When the train had been stopped, the man on the tender had ordered the fireman to dump his fire, and now it was lying in the road-bed and threatening to burn through the ties; so my first order was to extinguish it, and my second was to start a new fire and get up steam as quickly as possible. From all I could learn, there were eight men ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... he failed in it, would make all that long ride go for nothing. He was to take the train far up, ride down as blind baggage to the Murchison Pass, and then climb over the tender into the cab, stick up the fireman and the engineer, and make them bring the engine to a halt at the mouth of the pass, with Gidding Creek and safety for all that train only five minutes away. There was a touch of the Satanic ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... only to apply for it," replied the other. "But say, Jack, if you should be fool enough to go up to get killed on that old engine, you had better take a fireman along with you, for you will not be able to find ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... The fireman shook his head. "No, sir. I can't let any one through. And if I did 'twould be no good. The staircase is clean gone—a great big stone staircase, too! It's all in bits, just like a lot of rubble. The front of the house ain't touched, but the center and behind—well, sir, you ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... middle-aged, somewhat stout, and, at certain times of the year, somewhat stiff in the joints; and my general dress and demeanor, that of a sober business man, would not at all suggest the active and impetuous fireman of the period. I do not belong to any paid department, but to a volunteer Hook and Ladder Company, composed of the active-bodied or active-minded male citizens of the country town where I live. I am included ...
— Amos Kilbright; His Adscititious Experiences • Frank R. Stockton
... salesman for a Pittsburgh meat house, was on the ill-fated day express, one car of which was washed away. He narrowly escaped drowning, and tells a horrible tale of his experience on that occasion. The engineer, the fireman and himself, when they saw the flood coming, got upon the top of the car, and when the coach was carried away they caught the driftwood, and fortunately it was carried near the shore and they escaped to the hills. ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... side; the mules of the other bandits were upset, and they themselves roughly seized. The full-length statue of P. T. Barnum fell down of its own accord, as if disgusted with the whole affair. A red-shined fireman seized with either hand Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan by their coat-collars, tucked the Prince Imperial of France under one arm and the Veiled Murderess under the other, and coolly departed for the street. Two ragged boys quarreled over the Tom Thumb, but at length settled ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... had no time to cultivate their acquaintance in his school and college days, and had admired them only from afar in a diffident way; so when Alfred approached him and begged him once more to come and be introduced he slipped away downstairs to talk with his old boyhood friend, the fireman. ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... he found the disturbance had subsided, and presently fell into talk with a man on the opposite seat who asked for some tobacco. He told Dick he was a locomotive fireman, but had got into trouble, the nature of which he did not disclose. Dick never learned much more about his past than this, but their acquaintance ripened and Kemp ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... A fire-engine arrived; in a moment the hose was paid out to the river near by, and as a fireman seized the nozzle to train the water upon the building the roof fell in with a crash. At that instant Dennis stumbled out of the house, blind with smoke, his clothes aflame, carrying a man in his arms. A score of hands caught them, coats smothered Dennis's burning clothes, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... on the same tack now: an army rotten with venereal disease: overseas or halfseasover empire. Half baked they look: hypnotised like. Eyes front. Mark time. Table: able. Bed: ed. The King's own. Never see him dressed up as a fireman or a bobby. A ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... load this account with church programs, contributions to the ball team, tickets to the fireman's ball and the like. These are donations, ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... 1858. J. H. Kent was elected president and Charles R. Nichols secretary. The American Saloon was on Yates Street, and I think was kept by Thos. Burnes, who for years was a most enthusiastic fireman. ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... action, the hunter's spirit which animates the fireman and makes him attack an element as determinedly as he would a wild beast, becomes evident to the spectator. The scene which a London fire presents can never be forgotten: the shouts of the crowd as it opens to let the engines dart through it, the foaming head of ...
— Fires and Firemen • Anon.
... his dying gaze and called him back. It was the end of a fire-escape, and a fireman rose out of the smoke just in front of him, seized the child, and handed it down. Pelle stood there wrestling with the idea that he must move from where he was; but before it had passed through his mind a fireman had seized him by the scruff ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... man knows by experience that there are a multitude of powerful motives, entirely disconnected with future reward or punishment, causing him to resist evil and to do good even with self sacrificing toil and danger. When the fireman risks his life to save a child from the flames of a tumbling house, is the hope of heaven his motive? When the soldier spurns an offered bribe and will not betray his comrades nor desert his post, is the fear of hell all that animates him? A million ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... were shut together, side by side, intimate, mutually understanding. Again, a beautiful relation! From the summit of a high kiln in the middle distance, flames shot intermittently forth, formidable. Crockery was being fired in the night: and unseen the fireman somewhere flitted about the mouths of the kiln. And here and there in the dim faces of the streets a window shone golden... there were living people behind the blind! It was all beautiful, joy-giving. The thought of her mother fidgeting ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... that night, except to refuse the offer to ride inside the car. He preferred the footboard, he said, and explained that as a youth it had been his ambition to be a fireman. ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... expedition, Catherine struggled awake from dreams of book-lined trains, with Miss Adams and Elsmere as engineer and fireman, to open her eyes gratefully upon the substantial reality of her own great room in its fresh bareness. At the foot of her big carved bed, the broad window open to its utmost seemed to bring all out-of-doors within the room. A squirrel whisked his ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... this particular dime were of a rare kind and desired by A, a wealthy coin collector, to complete a set, would the consideration be sufficient? An offer shouted from a fourth story window just as the roof is about to fall, in consequence of which offer a fireman at unusual personal risk successfully attempts the rescue. An offer and acceptance for a horse which is afterwards discovered to have been dead at time of sale. A promise made under threat of spreading an infamous report. An agreement for the purpose of securing the postponement ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... dinner, and passed the entire day with uncombed hair, in a dressing-sacque, reading novels, and telling her fortune with cards. The grocer's daughter declared she had met her one evening, at a dancing-hall, seated with a fireman before a salad-bowl full of wine, prepared in ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... that already the engineer and fireman had been overcome, though not before the engineer had been able ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... the end of the trouble, for before I had recovered my breath a fireman broke in one of the front windows, and a whole company followed him through, and they dradged hose around, and mussed things all over the house, and then the foreman wanted to thrash me because the house was not on fire, and ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... the fireman of the hotel,—that is, the person so called who lights and looks after the hundred fires going in one of these establishments: he was a countryman and a staunch personal friend; and, after hearing ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... But I wasn't dressed for it. I should have worn a mauve peignoir, and been carried down to safety by a blond fireman. To have a fire without a fire-engine is like being married at a registry-office. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... a marine engine, the most sensitive thing man ever made; and No. .007, besides being sensitive, was new. The red paint was hardly dry on his spotless bumper-bar, his headlight shone like a fireman's helmet, and his cab might have been a hard-wood-finish parlour. They had run him into the round-house after his trial—he had said good-bye to his best friend in the shops, the overhead travelling-crane—the ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... imagined he foresaw a threatened attack on his Chicago City Street Railway preserves, "I see our friend Mr. Cowperwood has managed to get his own way with the council. I am morally certain he uses money to get what he is after as freely as a fireman uses water. He's as slippery as an eel. I should be glad if we could establish that there is a community of interest between him and these politicians around City Hall, or between him and Mr. McKenty. I believe ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... a few minutes. Here's where we oil up." Jim watched the operation with interest while the engineer and his fireman went methodically from part to part of the engine with their long ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... her armoured deck. Yet another of our shells struck a train which happened to be just entering Port Arthur station, destroying the locomotive and, as we subsequently learned, killing the engine-driver and severely wounding the fireman. Finally, the Retvisan adopted our own tactics and retaliated by firing her heavy guns over the intervening high ground, while some of the forts did the same, a party of signallers being stationed on the crest of the hill to direct their aim. As a result ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... wake up your fireman and have steam on the tug in an hour, then wait for me below the bridge. You're chartered for twenty-four hours, ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... Engineer, fireman, brakemen, and passengers cheered him. For Neale the moment was unexpected and simply heart-swelling. Never in his life had he felt so proud. And yet, stinging among these sudden sweet ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... of "Fire" in "The New Chemistry;" yet a young person would be foolish to take "Fire" as a subject for exposition, though he might easily write a good description of "How the Fire looked from My Window," or narrate "How a Fireman rescued My Sister." So in all work in composition, select a subject that readily lends itself to the form of discourse demanded; or, conversely, select the form of discourse suitable for presenting ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... in her fever of the brother who bent anxiously over her. (In her delirium, she imagined that he had been drowned on that terrible night.) Sailor Jack held the twins before her, but she took no notice of them. Her brother knew nothing about them or of any of the passengers. He had been a fireman on the wrecked vessel, and scarcely had been on deck from the hour of starting until the moment of the wreck. The other rescued woman frequently had seen a tall nurse with two very young infants on her lap, and a pale mother dressed in black standing ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... real name is Drevis) was born in Amsterdam in 1896. His father was a fireman at sea, and contributed next to nothing to the support of Tommy and his pretty little sister Greta. They lived with their grandmother, near the quays in Amsterdam, where the masts of ships and the smell of tar interfered with their lessons. Bread ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... many a hard fight only a little while after,—pointing back toward the wreck with the choking words, "They are in there!" They had fought their last fight and won, as they ever did, even if they did give their lives for the victory. Greater end no fireman could crave. ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... only did his dialect differ from those about him, but his habits were not those of a woodsman. For instance, he would always carry his matches loose in his pocket, instead of in a dry box; then, again, he would wear his trousers rolled up like a fireman's, as if to keep out the wet, instead of tucking them into his boots to tramp the woods the better. Now and then, too, he would let fall some word or expression which would betray greater familiarity with the ins and ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... who took me to the dressing-room, where I was stripped, and clad in the garb of a miner except the boots, which were all too short for my feet. My rig was an odd one; a skull-cap formed like a fireman's, a miner's coat and pants, and my own calf-skin boots. But in California I had got used to uncouth attire, and now thought nothing of such small matters. We therefore walked on without comments ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... come; thinking perhaps to start life afresh in some little Western town; with no money to carry her back to the outskirts of civilization, and no town wherein she might win fresh successes. The train that had brought her panted upon a siding, deserted, its boiler cooling, its engineer, fireman, conductor and brakeman leaning over a bar in the shack that called itself a saloon. To-morrow it would rattle back to the junction, if all went well and the rails held fast to the ties, which ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... pit the firemen once more descended; at first they were surprised not to find the hand-cart and its millions! No doubt, it had been covered by the mass of fallen bricks and mortar! But fireman Le Goffic, who had advanced some yards along the railway line, caught sight of it. The cart was lying upside down; but, except for a few scratches, it ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... of the locomotive, born, the son of a poor colliery engineman, at Wylam, near Newcastle; was early set to work, first as a cowherd and then as a turnip-hoer, and by 15 was earning 12s. a week as fireman at Throckley Bridge Colliery, diligently the while acquiring the elements of education; married at 21, and supplemented his wage as brakesman at Killingworth Colliery by mending watches and shoes; in 1815 invented a safety-lamp for miners, which brought him ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... came into the room in quick succession and received wages; one looking like a fireman, the other of a superior type, the skipper of a tug, say. There was another discussion with this latter over the balk of wreck-wood, and this man, too, shrugged his shoulders. His departure appeared to end the meeting. Grimm shut up a ledger, and I shrank down on ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... he said, "but they were shaken by princes and savans—the lightning did not despise them. Garibaldi's fingers were soiled with candle-grease, but they have moulded a free nation. Stephenson's fingers were black with coal, and soiled with machine oil of a fireman's work, but they pointed out highways to commerce and revolutionized civilization. There are those" (Whittaker and his set looked crestfallen here) "who will gladly take the hand of worthless loafers, or of genteel villains" (here certain ladies looked down), "but who ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... the earrings led the twins over the other track so that they would be sufficiently far from the train. To his surprise the engine began to slow down, the engineer and fireman waved their hands as they leaned out of the window and door of the cab, and by and by the ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... that the disease took no longer to travel all the way from Meshed to St Petersburg by rail and steamboat than to traverse the short distance from Meshed to Teheran by road. On the 16th of August cases began to occur in Hamburg; on the 19th of August a fireman was taken ill at Grangemouth in Scotland, where he had arrived the day before from Hamburg; and on the 31st of August a vessel reached New York from the same port with cholera on board. On the 8th of September the disease appeared in Galicia, having moved somewhat slowly westwards across Russia ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... largely due, no doubt, to the fact that the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers is composed of a very select and intelligent class of men. Every engineer must first serve an apprenticeship as a fireman, which usually lasts from four to twelve years. Very few are advanced to the rank of engineer in less than four years. The firemen themselves are selected men who must pass several physical examinations ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... most importance, the one which makes him generous or indifferent as to the rest. Even those women who pretend that they judge a man by his exterior only, see in that exterior an emanation from some special way of life. And that is why they fall in love with a soldier or a fireman, whose uniform makes them less particular about his face; they kiss and believe that beneath the crushing breastplate there beats a heart different from the rest, more gallant, more adventurous, more tender; and so it is that a young king or a crown prince may travel in foreign ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... the programme," he said in his clear voice, "is a song by Petty Officer Dawson, entitled, 'The Fireman's Daughter,'" and sat down ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... clever fellow," pursued Top Senior regretfully, slicing vigorously into the cold corned beef, for he was hungry. "Smart as a steel trap, and onderstan's his business. I never see a fireman what hed a better chance o' risin' to an ingineer. He knows Her pretty nigh's well ez I do. I've took real comfort in learning him all I could. But I'm afeerd, sometimes, he's on a down-grade and the brakes ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... cracked, even though his grandmother had knit him a pair of enormous red mittens. He appreciated the warmth of the mittens, but he hated the color. Why in the name of all that was inartistic did she choose red; not a deep, rich crimson, but a screeching vermilion, like a fireman's shirt? ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... man had to look to himself more and more sharply, lest he forget that economy of the individual was now the hope of the regiment. But for all that, when a Missourian craved tobacco—it is a craving not to be denied, in no matter what danger, as most any fireman knows—he would leave cover to beg his nearest neighbor for a chew, and obtaining it, would feel the heart put ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... off his shoes, and amid another cheer from the crowd, dashed up it as quick as thought. The window to which the fireman had pointed was clear of flames. On gaining it, Elliot sprang on to the sill and jumped down into ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... process. To wash successfully in this way requires a plentiful supply of water, at an elevation of from fifty to ninety feet above the bed-rock, [Footnote: This is by no means necessary. The jet can be thrown from below like the fireman's hose playing upon a burning house. I shall return to this highly important subject.] and a rapid slope or descent from the base of the bank of earth to be washed, so that the waste water will run off through the ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... WILLIAM ALCOTT, fireman. Camden, Nov., 1874.—Last Monday afternoon his widow, mother, relatives, mates of the fire department, and his other friends, (I was one, only lately it is true, but our love grew fast and close, the days and ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... sinking is not yet officially confirmed are the Florazan, which was torpedoed at the mouth of the Bristol Channel on March 11, all of her crew being landed at Milford Haven, with the exception of one fireman, and the Andalusian, which was attacked off the Scilly Islands on March 12. The crew of the Andalusian is reported ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... had already been got on to the other ladder, but instead of coming down, she held on tightly, screaming at the top of her voice, until the fireman with great difficulty got up by her side, wrenched her hands from their hold, threw her across his shoulder, and ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... whose parents were so poor that all lived in a single room. George had to watch cows for a neighbor, but he managed to get time to make engines of clay, with hemlock sticks for pipes. At seventeen he had charge of an engine, with his father for fireman. He could neither read nor write, but the engine was his teacher, and he a faithful student. While the other hands were playing games or loafing in liquor shops during the holidays, George was taking his machine to pieces, cleaning it, studying it, and making experiments ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden
... transferred, long afterward again, to Mr. Sweedlepipe, in "Martin Chuzzlewit"), worked generally side by side. Bob Fagin was an orphan, and lived with his brother-in-law, a waterman. Poll Green's father had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was employed at Drury Lane Theatre, where another relation of Poll's, I think his little sister, did imps ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... was splendid at the fire! You ought to have seen him holding a girl by one arm out of the window. He was as brave as a fireman, everybody said so, didn't they, ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... before. Down in the dark depths below him figures were flitting about under the dim lamp-light, sorting cargo and "setting things straight," as well as the rolling of the ship would let them; and our hero, wishing to be of some use, volunteered to help a grimy fireman in ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... aldermen, contractors, and Washington Market butchers), and the native New York manner of speaking, which is sharp and mandatory. The coroner began life as a stone mason, gained early distinction as a fireman, controlled several hundred votes in his ward, became a member of a political committee, and got a coronership as his share of the spoils. He had aspired to be a police justice, or city inspector, or commissioner of the Croton Board. To either ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... his fireman's uniform.] You get out o' the way here, old lady. Go an' attend to things upstairs. Nothin' to be done here with a syringe. You go up to my wife. Hold on! We gotta have the key to the engine house. ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... you. We can't see that shipping agent until to-morrow. A moving picture show for ours to-night, then. Though, being in the business, as we are, it's rather like a fireman going around to the engine-house on his day off, and staying there—a queer sort of a ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... persistent delay, hastened the result. The community at large became impatient beyond all bounds. There came about a feeling that something radical must be done, and that quickly. But it was still necessary that he should be patient. As the bravest fireman is the last to leave the burning structure, so the wise statesman must hold himself in check until the success of so important a measure ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... While the fireman scraped the iron floor for his last two shovelfuls of coal-dust and the train wheezed wearily into the dark station, Grim began to busy himself in mysterious ways. Part of his own costume consisted of a short, curved scimitar attached to an embroidered belt— ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... load can be made to give payable returns. The water is conveyed in flumes, or pipes to a point near where it is required, thence in wrought iron pipes gradually reduced in size and ending in a great nozzle somewhat like that of a fireman's hose. The "Monitor," as it is sometimes called, is generally fixed on a movable stand, so arranged that the strong jet of water can be directed to any point by a simple adjustment. A "face" is formed in the drift, and the water played against the lower portion of the ledge, ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... the appointment to Annapolis," continued Darrin, "you'll be asking me, next, if I expect to be promoted, after a while, to he helmsman, or fireman, on ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... the fireman who stood sentinel at the entrance, [the headquarters of the fire brigade and the police stations are generally together in Moscow] drove into the yard of the police station, and stopped at one of the doors. In the yard several firemen with their sleeves tucked up were washing some kind of cart ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... treatment: where there is too much heat, there is no danger of a lack of reaction, and consequently no occasion for fears that the rash might be "driven in." A physician afraid of using water freely in violent cases of scarlet-fever, would resemble a fireman afraid of using his engine, for fear of spoiling ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde
... "The fireman is a difficulty, but looking at it from Mead's point of view—whether he has been guilty of an error or a crime—it resolves itself into this: First, the fireman may be killed. Second, he may not notice the signal at all. Third, in any case he will loyally corroborate his driver and the good ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... flies about an open wound, to annoy, irritate, and kill. Against these the law has made no adequate provision. The military must, therefore, often interpose for the public good, without waiting for legislative authority, or the slow processes of the civil law, just as the fireman must proceed to batter down the doors of a burning edifice, without stopping to obtain the owner's permission to enter and ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... The fireman, as he looked up from his sweaty toil, sometimes found those eyes looking wonderingly into the raging depths of the furnace, and fearfully and pityingly at him, as if she thought him in some dreadful danger. Anon the steersman at the wheel paused ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... hideous ornaments of the draper's wife, and folded away her most objectionable tidies and table-covers, replacing them with our own pretty draperies. There were only two pictures in the sitting-room, and as an artist I would not have parted with them for worlds. The first was The Life of a Fireman, which could only remind one of the explosion of a mammoth tomato, and the other was The Spirit of Poetry calling Burns from the Plough. Burns wore white knee-breeches, military boots, a splendid waistcoat with lace ruffles, and carried a cocked hat. To have been so dressed he must ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... it not for the draft occasioned by the speed of the boat it would be very difficult to attend the fires. As the boat was booming along through the water close in-shore, for, in ascending the river, boats go as close as they can to avoid the current, a negro on the beach called out to the fireman that the wood was on fire. The reply was, "Go to h—-l, and mind your own business," from some half intoxicated hand. "Oh, massa," answered the negro, "if you don't take care, you will be in h—-l before I will." On, on, on went the boat at a tremendous rate, ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... presumed to change his lines, was an idiot incapable of articulate speech, brought her out of her daze. But even then she couldn't get anything quite right. There seemed to be no golden mean between the bellow of a fireman and a tone which Galbraith assured her wouldn't be audible three rows back. And when they came to one of the lines she'd been allowed to change, in her panic over the thing, she mixed the two versions ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... make room for it and then formed a close semicircle about it, looking curiously at the palm leaf which lay across the black cover. No one said anything. The baggage man stood by his truck, waiting to get at the trunks. The engine panted heavily, and the fireman dodged in and out among the wheels with his yellow torch and long oilcan, snapping the spindle boxes. The young Bostonian, one of the dead sculptor's pupils who had come with the body, looked about him helplessly. He turned to the banker, the only one of that black, uneasy, stoop-shouldered group ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... to become a railroad man, as his father had been before him. Step by step he worked his way upward, serving first in the Roundhouse, cleaning locomotives; then in the Switch Tower, clearing the tracks; then on the Engine, as a fireman; then as engineer of the Overland Express; and ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... Stove is a small affair that holds a piece of candle and a baby-size frying-pan, or skillet, and is one device for its purpose that has the approval of fire insurance companies and so will not be objected to by the theatre fireman. There are some heating devices that you are not permitted to use in any theatre, and persistence in their use after being once cautioned has caused arrest more ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... way. When morning dawned the Stoker[FN235] of the bath came to his work and, finding Zau al-Makan cast on his back, exclaimed, "Why did they not throw their dead body anywhere but here?" So saying, he gave him a kick and he moved; whereupon quoth the Fireman, "Some one of you who hath eaten a bit of Hashish and hath thrown himself down in whatso place it be!" Then he looked at his face and saw his hairless cheeks and his grace and comeliness; so he took pity on him and knew that he was sick and a stranger in the land. And he cried, "There ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... paper, first like a soldier's hat, and then like a fireman's hat, and then he pulled on the two ends, and, presto change! he had a paper boat. Then he took his crutch, and stuck it up in the middle of the boat, and put a piece of paper on the crutch, and he had a sail. Then he put the boat in the water, and got in it himself. ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis
... to be compared with that of the Forest Guard. A city fireman is only one of a company huddled together in a little house, not greatly busy until the fire telegraph signal rings. But suppose there were only one fireman for the whole city, that he alone were responsible for ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... (It was) that black devil you-all runnin' tru we lan'. Nigga duh (are) running through our land. (A) nigger (fireman) he stan' deh, duh po' coal stands there (and) he pours coal in eh stomach. into its stomach. Buckra duh sit up on eh seat, (A) white man (engineer) he sits up on his seat. duh smoke eh cigah, an' ebry (and) he smokes his cigar, and every tahme eh twis' eh ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... wide open and lunged into a snow-bank. The cars lurched, but the snow was flung off and the train went roaring through another shed. Here was where the defective rail had been reported. No matter. A greater danger was pressing behind. The fireman piled on coal until his clothes were wet with perspiration, and fire belched from the smoke-stack. The passengers, too, having been warned of their peril, had dressed themselves and were anxiously watching at the windows, for talk went ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... My husband wus a fireman on the Cape Fear river boats and a white man's Negro too. We had two children, both died while little. My husband and I spent much of our time with the white folks and when he wus on his runs I ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... Russ made a whole freight train with empty chicken coops, with a caboose at the end and a big engine in front, only Frane took an interest in it aside from the Bunkers themselves. And perhaps his interest was, only held because Russ agreed to make him the engineer while Laddie was fireman. ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... a lighted match in a coat closet—house next to the church," puffed the fireman, who was breathing as if he had run a mile. He gave the hose a parting kick and hurried to join his comrades down the street, where ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... between half-past seven and eight,' said a fireman, 'and as I was off duty I came out on deck for a blow. The force of the explosion threw me along the deck for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various
... a steamer from Melbourne when they made their minds up; and Isaac Lunn, the oldest fireman aboard—a very steady old teetotaler—gave them a lot of good advice about it. They all wanted to rejoin the ship when she sailed agin, and 'e offered to take a room ashore with them and mind their money, giving 'em what 'e called a moderate amount ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... sleeves and an apron, with his photographic plate holders in his hand. And then like a vision of purpose came Mr. Gambell, the greengrocer, running out of Clayford's Alley and buttoning on his jacket as he ran. His great brass fireman's helmet was on his head, hiding it all but the sharp nose, the firm mouth, the intrepid chin. He ran straight to the fire station and tried the door, and turned about and met the eye of Boomer still at his upper window. "The key!" cried ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... about New York and London in his queer stilted way. He had been a fireman on board ship, a teacher of jiujitsu, a juggler, a quack dentist, Heaven knows what else. Driven by the conscientious inquisitiveness of his race, he had endured hardships, contempt and rough treatment with the smiling patience inculcated in the Japanese people by their education. ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... allowed to have any other employment to occupy their time. The department claims their whole duty. A certain number are required to be always at the engine house. In case of an alarm being sounded during the absence of a fireman from the engine house, he runs directly to the fire, where he is sure to find his company. Everything is in readiness to leave the house at a moment's notice. The horses stand ready harnessed, and are so well trained that but a few seconds suffices ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... Lavina's boarding house had been so scandalized in years. In midday, bareheaded, clad only in swimming trunks, Aloysius Pankburn ran down the main street from Lavina's to the water front. He put on the gloves with a fireman from the Berthe in a scheduled four-round bout at the Folies Bergeres, and was knocked out in the second round. He tried insanely to drown himself in a two-foot pool of water, dived drunkenly and splendidly from fifty feet up in the rigging of ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... the police officer on the street corner, the letter carrier gathering the mail, the district messenger boy, the express company, the delivery wagon of the stores, have all come in since Washington died. In his day the law required every householder in the city to be a fireman. His name might not appear on the rolls of any of the fire companies, he might not help to drag through the streets the lumbering tank which served as a fire engine, but he must have in his hall, or beneath the stairs, or hanging up behind his shop door, at ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... and that she was allowed to proceed. The message added that the Normandy rescued three American citizens who were members of the crew of the Leo, and names them as Walter Emery, seaman, of Swan Quarter, N.C.; Harry Whitney, steward, of Camden, N.J., and Harry Clark, fireman, of 113 ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... of escape and to give the ladies courage. Then a lady ventured into the sling-lifebuoy, or cradle, with a sailor, but they stuck fast during the transit, and while being hauled back to the wreck, fell out and were drowned. A fireman then made the attempt. Again the cradle stuck, but the man was strong and went hand over hand along the hawser to the shore, where Mr Byrne rushed into the surf and caught hold of him. The rescuer nearly lost his life in the attempt. He was overtaken ...
— Battles with the Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... remarked the fireman. 'The other day we found part of a brass chandelier, and wound all around it was a perfect mop of long, silky hair—with a piece of skin, big as your two hands, at the end of it. Some woman got tangled up that way in the flood ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... back-rooms, now blazing fiercely. Up go the firemen again and plunge into the windows right into the flames. A long time elapses. We hold our breath; it seems as if the brave men must have perished. Then there is a cheer as a fireman appears with something in his arms. It is a girl unconscious; gently he lowers her down the ladder, and goes again to help his comrade. They reappear and come down in safety. Are all out now? No; for all at once, at ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... against the roofs and fronts of the pork-houses. It was almost as good as a muster to see the firemen in their red shirts and black trousers, dragging the engine at a run, two and two together, one on each side of the rope. My boy would have liked to speak to a fireman, but he never dared; and the foreman of the Neptune, which was the larger and feebler of the engines, was a figure of such worshipful splendor in his eyes that he felt as if he could not be just a common human being. He was a storekeeper, to begin with, and he was tall and slim, and his ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... Spanish, according to the predominating nationality of my audience. Or it might be called 'A Thrilling Incident of the Great New York Fire,' in which case Juliet's moonlight would be spoken of as 'devastating flames,' and Romeo's mandolin would figure as a fireman's helmet. It is a painting of infinite possibilities, any one of which may be impressed upon an audience by a judiciously selected title and the skilful directing of their imagination. Although I am proud of this picture, I have ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... watched all sorts and conditions of Huns passing up and down the main staircase. Amongst them we saw several colonels, a general and a very smart monocled major, whose helmet was rather the shape of a fireman's, showing that he was in some crack cavalry regiment—dragoons, I think. They mostly wore pale blue-grey overcoats, and their buttons, sword-hilts and golden eagles on their helmets glittered exquisitely. The general appearance was smart ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... gesticulating and declaring that they had not come to the skating to warm themselves, but the mayor, heeding no one, opened the door and beckoned to someone with his crooked finger. A workman and a fireman ran up ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... hole. I hid behind a bench till every one had gone and saw 'em crawl out. They bribed a fireman or deck-hand or some one to keep 'em under cover. They got off the boat at the last minute, and ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... this privilege on a bleak, frosty day, early last winter. He was told by the officials that he took the ride at his own risk, and as a matter of personal favor, and that he must not interfere with the engineer or fireman in the execution of their duties. The guest was received kindly by both engineer and fireman, and was given a seat whence he could see along expanse of track over which the locomotive had to draw the train of cars. To a novice the sensation of a first ride on ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... beloved," he explained. "They couldn't be said to him. I thought of his hands touching you—his voice speaking to you—you, young as an angel, as beautiful as the goddess that floated in upon the world in a mother-of-pearl dinghy! As clever as that other one with the fireman's tin hat, as game as Jimmy Wilde, and as kind as Heaven. Spoke to you—touched you—looked at you—blasphemy, profanation and sacrilege! And barged into your bedroom, when—. My God! woman," cried poor Dick, as if a flame came from the marble lips of him, ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... as a fireman on board a steamboat, between Cincinnati and New Orleans, lost all his money, at play with his companions. He then staked his clothing, which he also lost. Having nothing more, he laid down his free papers and staked himself. Losing this time, also, he was actually sold ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb
... down on the floor, pounded frantically on the door, and at last the door was broken open by a stalwart fireman, and Phil ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... assistant lunch buster,' says he, and in the course of things he further explained that he was a tugboat fireman, out on a strike, givin' me the follerin' information ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... He who begins his career with a shovel in a locomotive cab usually has something of that sort to look back upon. There are no roses along the pathway he has traversed. In the end, perhaps, he wonders if it has been worth while. David Cable was a General Manager; he had been a fireman. It had required twenty-five years of hard work on his part to break through the chrysalis. Packed away in a chest upstairs in his house there was a grimy, greasy, unwholesome suit of once-blue overalls. The garments were just as old as his railroad career, ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... use of regularly appointed signals, the first fireman who arrives at the fire can inform headquarters just how serious the fire is, and whether more engines ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 57, December 9, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... morning of the day they were to sail a man applied to Captain Barforth for a position. He said he had been a fireman on an ocean liner, but had lost three fingers in ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer
... on steam. He insult me. So I put my foot on him an' run engine myself. I am Wampus. I understan' engine—all kinds. Brakeman he swear; he swear so bad I put him off train. Conductor must have lump of coal in eye to keep quiet. Fireman he jus' smile an' whistle soft an' say nothing; so we friends. When I say 'shovel in coal,' he shovel. When we pass stations quick like, he whistle with engine loud. So now we ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... ours is located. It is the only train operated on Sunday, and it leaves Sequoia at five p.m. to carry the Pennington and Cardigan crews back to the woods after their Saturday-night celebration in town. As a usual thing, all hands, with the exception of the brakeman, engineers, and fireman, are singing, ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... fact that the Ocean Waif, of London, on a voyage from Antwerp and Southampton to the River Plate, had supposedly been wrecked off the north coast of France. Sole survivor, Albert Robinson, apparently a fireman or a steward, who lay at the Hotel de la Plage at Yport, unconscious, and suffering from a severe concussion of the brain. By midday, also, the cure was established as sick nurse in the back bedroom of the little hotel with an English conversation-book, borrowed from the schoolmaster, protruding ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... labouring flames—it rose out of sight like the flame-tops till the columns of water brought them down. I thought of my father, and of my watch. The two girls were not visible. 'A glorious life a fireman's!' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Congress, from which all our appropriations come, to give us a regular police officer. I am a great believer in the moral influence of brass buttons. At the present time, our engineer and fireman are both sworn as special police officers. They both have police badges, which they can display on occasions. I would, however, like to have a regular officer ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... & Quincy. It had bright brass bands all over, the woodwork beautifully painted, and everything highly polished, which was the custom up to the time old Commodore Vanderbilt stopped it on his roads. After running about fifteen miles the fireman couldn't keep his eyes open (this event followed an all-night dance of the trainmen's fraternal organization), and he agreed to permit me to run the engine. I took charge, reducing the speed to about twelve miles an hour, and brought the train of seven cars to her ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... freedom of the theater, who sit successively in the depths of the dark hall and show the same delirium. Even the sixty firemen on duty who, during these sixty rehearsals, have invariably laught and wept at the same passages. Yet it is well known that the fireman is the modern Laforet of our modern Molieres, as M. Prud'homme would say, and that when the fireman is satisfied—it is ...
— How to Write a Play - Letters from Augier, Banville, Dennery, Dumas, Gondinet, - Labiche, Legouve, Pailleron, Sardou, Zola • Various
... "Ask any driver or fireman on the road, and if he don't slip you one with a shovel for your withering ignorance he'll tell you just what I'm telling you now. Yes, you and your ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various
... help, is not the prayer of nicely rounded periods—Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null—but the prayer of passionate entreaty. It is a call—a call such as a doctor receives at dead of night; a call such as the fireman receives when all the alarms are clanging; a call such as the ships receive in mid-ocean, when, hurtling through the darkness and the void, there comes the wireless message, 'S.O.S.' 'Call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... Knight of the Order of Leopold, F.B.S., the originator of our railway system. This eminent engineer is a rare example of a self-taught genius. Born of parents too poor to give him any schooling, at eighteen years of age, when full grown, and following the occupation of a fireman, he was not ashamed to commence his education at an evening school. His steady industry and unconquerable perseverance ultimately won for him a position second to none in his profession. Looking at the influence of his labours on the whole human race, there are few ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... a diminished charge, lest the shot should pass through, and injure the TEMERAIRE. And because there was danger that the REDOUBTABLE might take fire from the lower-deck guns, the muzzles of which touched her side when they were run out, the fireman of each gun stood ready with a bucket of water; which, as soon as the gun was discharged, he dashed into the hole made by the shot. An incessant fire was kept up from the VICTORY from both sides; her larboard guns playing upon the BUCENTAURE and the ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... something like a fireman. He had lived so long in an atmosphere of constant alarms and danger, that he was always ready for almost any emergency. His room was equipped with the end in view that he could act ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... The fireman and engineer jumped from their cab, holding their arms stiffly above their heads; and Haines approached with poised revolver to make them flood the fire box. In this way the train would be delayed ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... bell to a fireman, and brought the boys out of their beds like a shot, and they scrambled into their clothes and were in the living room with their arms ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... "a ladder by which to scale the cliff! Why, you have told us that it was three hundred feet in sheer height? The longest ladder in the world would not reach a third of the way up such a precipice. Even a fireman's ladder, that is made to reach to the tops of the highest houses, would be of no use for such ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... huge living monster that had seen with its single eye the abyss of the broken bridge in time, had leaped the chasm and gone plunging and faring over the ties and rails a half mile beyond the wreck, with the engineer and fireman clinging ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... busy enough, for it was Christmas-eve, and the carols and anthems were to be rehearsed for the last time, and Mrs. Morton's clear soprano voice could not be spared. Indeed, her voice was all that kept Teddie and Clover and Daisy in their neat little box of a house, for their father, a brave fireman, had been killed more than two years before at a fearful fire, and since then their mother had striven hard to maintain her little family by sewing, and singing, and doing whatever work her slender hands could accomplish which would bring in food and ...
— Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... of the fireman has no exceptions or amendments. It is a simple thing—as simple as the rule of three. There was the heedless unit in the right of way; there was the hose-cart and the iron ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... saved us: as the saying is, it was touch and go—the nearest thing I ever did see. Had the rotten old boiler struck work for five minutes when we were clearing out of Trn, or steaming along Sinfir shore, nothing could have kept the ship afloat. Those who behaved best, a fireman, a boy who crept into the combustion-chamber to clear it, and helmsman who, having been at Liverpool, spoke a little English, were duly "bakhshsh'd." The same reward was given by mistake to the boilermaker, Mohammed Sa'd Haddd, who had malingered, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... a fireman is a brave fellow! He fears nothing, least of all fire! Well, the fireman in question, who had gone to make a round of inspection in the cellars and who, it seems, had ventured a little farther than usual, suddenly reappeared on the ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux |
