Larry Barlow's ambition

The speaker was a tall, well-built young fellow of nineteen. He had curly brown hair, clear brown eyes and a face that was as handsome as it was full of power.

“If I could only sell this we’d be in clover, and I could tell fellows like old Grinder to go to Halifax!” said Larry, when Kate came up to make him go to bed.

There was a crowd on the station platform, and before Larry could get out of the train the two men were lost to sight. In vain he looked for them; they could not be found.

“Save me!” It was a beautiful girl who uttered the words, as she staggered toward Larry. She was not more than fourteen years of age, with golden hair and eyes of deepest blue.

Those at the net, stretched below, stood firm, although more than one man wished that the terrible ordeal was over. Should Larry and the girl come down on the head of one of the...

“That’s what they call it. Somewhere uptown in New York City they have what they call a school of instruction for would-be firemen. Everybody who joins the department has to go...

“All right, then, see that you do. And mind, if you touch Willie Morrison again you’ll have a fresh score to settle with me, and I won’t be as easy as I was this time.”

“He is a very rich man and I know him very well,” answered Martin Pollox. “Fact is, his wife and my former wife were related. He’s alone in the world, but for one child, a girl...

From outside came the crackling of the flames and the shrill tooting of the fire engines; from closer came the crackling of timbers and the rushing of water as it continued to c...

“I will do what I can for you, Barlow,” said Mr. Kessenger. “But a good deal of what comes will depend upon yourself. To tell the truth you are rather young for the department.”

Larry walked off in a very sober frame of mind. Since coming to the city he had thought of pretty Mary Vern many times. It cut him to the heart to think of what she must endure.

Then, as he opened his eyes for a brief second, he beheld a log floating near, and clutched it just as a drowning man is supposed to clutch at a straw. His mind was in a whirl,...

“They are not telling the truth,” declared Larry, with flashing eyes. “I tackled them with my fists, and it was Shanner there who picked up the picket and I took it away from him.”

One afternoon when Larry had a half a day to himself, he was strolling down Broadway, when a young lady, coming from a jewelry store, ran and caught him by the arm.

“Something is wrong here, I am certain of it,” he told himself. “I wouldn’t trust Martin Pollox. He will surely swindle Mary Vern out of her fortune if he can possibly do so.”

It was several weeks later when Larry got an afternoon off, and determined to take a walk in the direction of Martin Pollox’s home on Forty-first street. He did not expect to ca...

She was right, Martin Pollox was slowly regaining his senses. He opened his eyes in a dazed fashion, and then tried to stand up. Mary took hold of one hand and Larry of the othe...

In a minute more, before Larry could do anything with the drawings, even if he so desired, Martin Pollox came back. As he approached they heard the front door slam and knew that...

“If you don’t get out in a hurry I’ll kick you down the stairs,” returned Larry. “And don’t you dare show your face in this house again, or dare to say a word to my sister on th...

When Larry and the sailor came up they were a good thirty feet from the burning dock. The sailor clung frantically to the young fireman, for the fire had rendered him unable to...

It was truly a perilous situation. The planking of the burning dock wedged Larry and the sailor in on all sides, while the oil from the bursted barrels flowed all around them.

“Come on, fellows; let’s give him a good whipping!” cried the bully, appealing to his friends. Then he struck at Larry again, hitting him a severe blow on his burnt arm.

He and Kate were both anxious to learn more of what Caleb Backstay knew of the past, and so three days after coming home he and his sister determined to call at the hospital and...

Larry went back to his life as a fireman in a very serious mood. He could not imagine what had become of Caleb Backstay, and the fact that he received no word from the old sailo...

For the moment he could not think. But then, like a flash of lightning, the terrible truth burst upon him—the tenement fire, his going to the top floor to look for the woman, an...

As soon as he had changed his clothing, Larry got a mouthful to eat and started off for the tenement where Check Sluggers lived. He thought the rascal might possibly go home, bu...

For several days nothing out of the ordinary occurred. Of course there were the usual number of alarms, but none of the fires were of importance, and in some cases the alarms we...

The young fireman was scratched deeply on the arm and on the left shoulder, but this counted for little or nothing considering the greater peril of being torn to shreds by the w...

He was pretty certain Sluggers had not seen him, and now took a roundabout way to reach the boathouse where he hoped to meet the girl he wished to befriend.

It was Larry who uttered the words, as he sat on a pile of old sacking in the hold of the schooner. All was pitch dark around him, and the only sound that reached his ears was t...

The men went on deck, leaving the cabin deserted. Before departing, Larry, through a crack of the door, saw Captain Naxon put away a number of papers in a locker at one side of...

As the train for Jersey City upon which Larry and the officer were riding pulled into Elizabethport station, our hero caught sight of a familiar figure lounging near the news st...