The Fire Drill

All-Story Weekly, December 27, 1919

M

R. FURBUSH was a man of action. So, when the idea occurred to him, he at once translated it. “What a ghastly farce it is,” he remarked, “that people never get acquainted with their own fire-escapes until there is a fire. We have all kinds of drills except fire-escape drills for the tenants of apartments. We flatdwellers trust to luck, and hope it will be good. “We never think of familiarizing ourselves with the iron stairway; never experiment to see if we know how to slide the ladder into its groove. As in everything else, we just take a chance. If a fire comes, we make our first trip down a fire-escape, trusting that we won’t get nervous or dizzy, and that we’ll reach the ground without mishap. It’s bad, bad dope; that’s what it is,” said Mr. Furbush, “and I for one won’t stand for it.” “What are you going to do?” asked Mrs. Furbush. “Organize a fire-escape drill among the people of this house?” “It would be a mighty sensible idea if I did,” rejoined Mr. Furbush, “but I sha’n’t undertake a big contract like that, at least not yet. Safetyfirst begins at home. I shall first of all familiarize myself with the fire-escape; and then teach you. That will do for a starter. And we’ll begin right now, this minute.” The Furbush apartment was on the third

floor. There was one above it, and there were two below. The fire-escape was a modern affair, consisting of an ample platform at every floor, and a ladder that was almost a stairway connecting them. The ladder had a guard-rail, and altogether it inspired confidence. Mr. Furbush opened a window and stepped out. “Please be careful. James,” cautioned Mrs. Furbush, from behind the curtains. “It’s enough to make your head swim out there.” “Think how much more it would swim if there was the added nerve-strain of a fire,” answered Mr. Furbush. “Wear this old golf cap or you’ll take cold,” said Mrs. Furbush, passing it out. From the iron platform Mr. Furbush looked up, then down, and finally decided upon the up route. “I’ll try the roof first,” he thought. “Oftentimes the way to the ground is blocked by flame and smoke. So here goes to the roof.” Cautiously he climbed. It was a trifle unnerving. All the more reason, therefore, for practise. Up he went until his eyes were on a level with the window of the apartment above. Mr. Furbush gasped. “Gosh!” he said to himself. “I’ll be pinched for a Peeping Tom, sure. Why don’t people pull their shades down when they’re dressing, especially when they’re on a public

The Fire Drill thoroughfare like a fire-escape? I’ll get out of this.” With catlike tread, Mr. Furbush descended to his own level. “Now I’ll go down instead,” he decided, after a brief pause to recover himself. “I’ll see if I know how to operate that ladder.” Suiting the action to the word, he grasped the guard-rail and began his “drill” anew. He had almost reached the second floor platform when something bade him pause. It was a woman; a woman screaming. There was something decidedly personal in her screams; personal and piercing. “Pol-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-c-e!” It was not over as quickly as that, but such was its general purport. It spoke volumes. “Lord!” cried Mr. Furbush. “Those new tenants on the floor below. Whoever she is, she doesn’t know me from Adam. I can’t argue with a hysterical woman.” This time, Mr. Furbush forgot where he was, and went up the fire-escape, two steps at a time, to the Furbush floor. The Furbush window was open and he darted in. “Oh,” cried Mrs. Furbush, “thank Heaven you’re safe! I went away just for a minute to answer the telephone, and while I was out of the room, I heard somebody scream. I thought you had fallen. I thought you were killed.” “I would have been, had either of two women had a chance at me,” replied her husband. “There’s absolutely no privacy on a fire-escape. A man tears his character into shreds the minute he steps out on one. Look out the window, just sort of—er— carelessly, will you, and see if you see or hear anybody?” Mrs. Furbush dutifully did so, and then reported the result. “I think the people down-stairs were just shutting and locking their window,” she told her husband. “And there were several women at the windows in back of us who seemed unduly interested, I thought. One of them seemed

2

almost excited. They probably heard the screaming, too. “I’d like to know what it was. Do take off that golf cap. The way you have it pulled down over your eyes, you look positively tough in it.” Mr. Furbush threw the golf cap across the room and dropped into a chair. “Did you find out how to work the ladder in the groove?” asked his wife. “I did not!” replied Mr. Furbush, with a savage abruptness that seemed quite uncalled for. “Why not?” persisted Mrs. Furbush, puzzled. “I thought you said—” There was a very determined ringing of the Furbush bell at the end of their private hall. It was followed by some equally determined knocking, as if by several fists. “Gracious,” cried Mrs. Furbush, “I just felt that something was the matter, and now I’m sure of it. Perhaps it’s murder!” Mrs. Furbush ran up the hall toward the door. Mr. Furbush followed, with quaking knees. “That woman up-stairs did see me, I betcha!” he thought. “Saw me and recognized me, and now I’m in for it. Sent her husband down, probably, to find out what I mean by peeking in her window.” Meanwhile, Mrs. Furbush had reached the entrance, and there, on the stair landing without, through her parted door-curtains, she saw two policemen and the janitor. Each of the policemen seemed about nine feet in height. And they were red faced and breathing hard from climbing the three flights. She opened the door. “Lady,” said one of them, “we want to take a look through your flat. We think a secondstory man—a feller we’ve been watching—got in here. A woman in one of the houses back of you saw him out on your fire-escape and telephoned the station.” The policeman did not wait for answer.

All-Story Weekly With drawn revolvers, they had already begun their search. Mr. Furbush heard them and quickly ducked into a convenient bedroom. “It was my husband, I guess, they saw,” faltered Mrs. Furbush. One of the officers turned and regarded her with such a look of suspicion that Mrs. Furbush flushed. “What was your husband doing out on the fire-escape?” he asked. “Well, I told him to be careful, but he would—” “Where is he now?” “Why, here. Somewhere,” said the flustered Mrs. Furbush. At this instant, there was a booming voice from the room which opened on the fire-escape. “Hey, Mike,” cried the booming voice, “ain’t this Slippery Ike’s cap?” The party followed—all save Mr. Furbush. “Where’d you find that, Joe?” asked Mrs. Furbush’s inquisitor. “Here on the floor, just under the bureau.” “It’s a dead ringer for the one Ike had on the day he gave us the slip. Who’s hat is that, lady?” “It’s my husband’s,” said Mrs. Furbush weakly. “I gave it to him because I thought he’d catch cold.” “Better guard the door, Mike,” said one officer to the other, icily. “ ’S all right,” replied his partner. “He can’t get away. Leary’s on the roof and Connor’s down in the basement hall.” Mrs. Furbush felt herself “coming back.” “James Furbush, where are you?” she called in a commanding voice. James Furbush stepped forth with attempted jauntiness. It was a bad job.

3

“Is this man your husband?” asked the cop called Mike. “He is.” “Anybody else in the house know him, besides you?” Mrs. Furbush glared, but the janitor saved the situation. “How you do, Mr. Furbush?” he said. “We are sorry we give you all this trouble, but—” The officers looked distinctly disappointed, but they wouldn’t give him up just yet. “What were you doing out on the fire-escape when there wasn’t any fire?” asked the largest of the nine-footers. “That was just it,” said Mr. Furbush, moistening his lips with his tongue. “I went out to practise. People shouldn’t wait until there is a fire before familiarizing themselves with their fire-escape. They should get used to it.” The officer turned the thing over in his mind. “ ’S good idea,” he said finally; “more people ought to do it. But you want to be careful, next time you do it, not to raise the neighborhood.” “I never made a sound,” protested Mr. Furbush. “Well, maybe you should have,” said the officer. “You don’t want to scare people like this—and takin’ our time, too. You ought to tell your neighbors when you’re thinkin’ of doin’ that again. It’ll save a lot of trouble.” “I’ll not do it again, unless there’s a fire,” snapped Mr. Furbush. “Why, James,” said Mrs. Furbush, “I thought you said that everybody ought to—” “Cut it out,” said Mr. Furbush, “can’t you!” And he kicked the golf cap viciously—it was too reminiscent of Slippery Ike.