Part 14 (1/2)
”How should you do it?” asked Keith.
”It ought to be laid right--so there's no bends or sharp angles in it; it should never be laid over heaps of stones, or any kind of uneven surface--it all increases the water resistance. If there are any bends or curves they should be regular and even. The hose ought never to rest against a sharp edge or angle. And when you coil it up you ought to reverse the sides every time, so it will wear even and stretch even. Do they do it? Not unless I stand over them with a club!”
He showed Keith the hose, made of India rubber, a comparatively new thing, for heretofore hose had been made of riveted leather. Bert Taylor made him feel the inside of this hose with his forefinger to test its superlative smoothness.
”Mighty little resistance there!” he cried triumphantly.
The nozzles, all in racks, he handled with almost reverent care.
”These are the boys that cost the money,” said Taylor. ”If the inside isn't polished like a mirror the water doesn't come smooth. And the least little dent makes the stream ragged and broken. Nothing looks worse--and it isn't as effective on the fire. It ought to be thrown like a solid rod of water. I can't get the boys to realize that the slightest bruise, dent, or burr throws the stream in a ragged feathery foam. The result of that is that a lot of water is dissipated and lost.”
Keith, who had taken hold of the nozzle rather negligently, returned it with the reverent care due crown jewels.
”How long a stream will it throw?” he asked.
”With thirty men on a side she's done a hundred and twelve feet high, and two hundred and eighteen for distance,” said Bert with simple pride.
He picked up the nozzle again.
”See here. Here's an invention of my own. Cost money to put it in, too, because every other nozzle on earth is made wrong.”
He explained that other nozzles are made so that the thread of the hose screwed into the nozzle; while in his, the thread of the nozzle screwed into the hose.
”If there's a leak or a bad connection,” explained Bert, ”with the old type, the water is blown back into the fireman's face, and he is blinded. His whole efficiency depends on a close joint. But with my scheme the leak is blown forward, away from the lineman. It's a perfectly sound scheme, but I can't make them see it.”
”Sounds reasonable,” observed Keith, examining perfunctorily a device to which later he was to owe his life.
Item by item they went over the details of equipment--the scaling ladders, the jumping sheets, the branch pipes, the suction pipes, the flat roses, standc.o.c.ks, goose necks, the dogtails, dam boards, shovels, saws, poleaxes, hooks, and ropes. From a consideration of them the two branched off to the generalities of fire fighting. Keith learned that the combating of a fire, the driving it into a corner, outflanking it, was a fine art.
”I say always, _get in close_,” said Taylor. ”A fire can be _put_ out as well as just drowned out.”
It struck Keith as interesting that in a room a stream should always be directed at the top of a fire, so that the water running down helps extinguish the flames below, whereas in attack at the bottom or centre merely puts out the immediate blaze, leaving the rest to spread upward or sideways. Taylor put himself on record against fighting fire from the street.
”Don't want a whole lot of water and row,” he maintained. ”Get in close quarters and make every drop count.”
When Bert's enthusiasm palled, Keith always found men in the reading-room. The engine house was a sort of clearing house for politics, business schemes, personal affairs, or differences.
Once a day, also, as part of his job in his profession, Keith went to the courthouse. There he sat in the enclosure reserved for lawyers and listened to the proceedings, his legal mind alert and interested in the technical battles. At no time in the world's history has sheer technicality unleavened by common sense been carried further than in the early California courts. Even in the most law-ridden times elsewhere a certain check has been exercised by public opinion or the presence of business interests. But here was as yet no public opinion; and business interests, their energies fully taxed by the necessities of a new country, were willing to pay heavily to be let alone.
Consequently, lawyers were permitted to play out their fascinating game to their hearts' content, and totally without reference to expedience or to the justice of the case. The battles were indeed intensely technical and shadowy. Points within points were fought bitterly. Often for days the real case at issue was forgotten.
Only one of the more obvious instances of technical triumph need be cited. One man killed another, on a public street, before many witnesses. The indictment was, however, thrown out and he released because it stated only that the victim was killed by a pistol, and failed to specify that his death was due to the discharge of said pistol. The lawyer who evolved this brilliant idea was greatly admired and warmly congratulated.
The wheels of the law ground very slowly. One of the simplest and most effective expedients of defence was delay. A case could be postponed and remanded, often until the witnesses were scattered or influenced.
But there were infinite numbers of legal expedients, all most interesting to a man of Keith's profession. His sense of justice was naturally strong and warm, and an appeal to it outside a courtroom or a law office always got an immediate and commonsense response. But inside the law his mind automatically closed, and a ”case” could have only legal aspects. Which is true of the majority of lawyers to-day.
On the adjournment of court Keith generally drifted over to the El Dorado or the Empire, where he spent an hour or so loafing with some of his numerous acquaintances. He was of the temperament that makes itself quickly popular, the laughing, hearty sort, full of badinage, and genuinely liking most men with whom he came in contact. There was always much joking in the air, but back of it was a certain reserve, a certain wariness, for every second man was a professed ”fire-eater,”
given to feeling insulted on the slightest grounds, and flying to the duel or the street fight instanter.
This hour was always most pleasant to Keith; nevertheless, he went home about five o'clock in order to enjoy an hour or so of daylight about the place. He performed prodigies of digging in the new garden: constructing terraces, flower beds, walks, and the like. While the actual construction work was under way he was greatly interested, but cared nothing for the finished product or the mere growing of the flowers.