HE PASSED HIS FOREARM ACROSS THE GIPSY'S THROAT [PAGE 21]

JACK CARSTAIRS
OF THE POWER HOUSE

A TALE OF SOME VERY YOUNG MEN
AND A VERY YOUNG INDUSTRY

BY

SYDNEY SANDYS

WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS BY
STANLEY L. WOOD

SECOND EDITION

METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON

Colonial Library

First Published ... October 14th, 1909

Second Edition ... November 1909

DEDICATED

IN ALL DEFERENCE
TO
THE MEMORY OF THAT VERY GREAT ENGLISHMAN

GEORGE STEPHENSON

ENGINEER
INVENTOR OF THE FIRST LOCOMOTIVE, AND OF
THE TOOLS TO CONSTRUCT IT
FIGHTER OF MEN AND CIRCUMSTANCES
PIONEER OF THE RAILWAY

PREFACE

I have endeavoured to show you the engineer, in two phases, as I have met him: it is for you, gentlemen with the votes, to decide which you prefer; for you have to have one of them, and his numbers are increasing at a high rate of acceleration.

JACK CARSTAIRS
OF THE POWER HOUSE

CHAPTER I

A young engineer stood at the gates of the electric power house yard watching the sun set. It was the middle of June, in the north of Scotland, where the summer days are very long and very beautiful.

The sun sank slowly behind a little wooded hill, throwing into strong relief a clump of fir trees at the summit, and making lanes of golden light along the sparkling rushing river where the silver salmon leapt in sportive joy. As the last edge of the sun disappeared behind the hill, a sudden hush seemed to descend on all the land. The power house was about a mile from the little town that nestled at the foot of the hills. It was a bare, brick building standing alone on the river-bank in the middle of a large tract of waste moorland. Inside, a stalwart, bearded highlander sat on a box eating his "piece," and drinking tea from a can; he and the young engineer at the door were the only occupants of the place. There was no machinery running, a battery was doing the work, for the needs of this little town in summer time were very small.

The young man at the door gazed around him enchanted with the beauty of the evening; the sudden hush that fell on everything seemed to strike him too. He felt subdued with a great awe, the great and awful majesty of Nature seemed thrust upon him suddenly; only the faint rustle of the long grass near the water served to make the stillness more intense; some crisis in Nature seemed impending.

Suddenly a strange note struck his ear, and immediately afterwards all the usual sounds of life started afresh; a robin and a thrush commenced to sing simultaneously, several birds started chirping all around, a salmon splashed heavily in the river, the distant moo of a cow was borne in upon his ears, the Scotsman inside moved his box with a harsh creak: all these things seemed to start off at once, as though some tension were removed, some crisis past.

The engineer looked in the direction of the sound that had at first broken the stillness and perceived a young girl, with a basket on her arm, raking over the heaps of ashes outside the boiler-house in search of stray bits of coal or coke.

He looked at her intently, with an unusual interest. There was a gipsy camp not far off, and some members of the tribe were usually hovering round the works for what they could pick up; as a rule they were very young and very dirty. This girl seemed about seventeen, and somewhat clean; every movement showed graceful, even lines. He strolled towards her.

"Looking for coal?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," she answered.

She stood up and looked him in the eyes steadily.

He looked at her steadily too, and so they stood; brown eyes gazing into grey. He wondered greatly at the singular clearness of hers, big, and of a marvellous shade of dark brown, the white absolutely clear; the colour like some beautifully tinted crystal. He noticed eyes, and he gazed into hers for some time, dispassionately, as something inanimate, noting their marvellous perfection.

He smiled with pleasure, and instantly noted a gleam of pleasure in her eyes also. Then he shifted his gaze and took in a general impression of the face. It was remarkably beautiful, every feature was even and in perfect harmony. The eyebrows were delicately pencilled lines of deepest black. The eyelashes unusually long, they drooped downwards, and as he looked at her, the whole head took a gentle bend downwards in natural and graceful modesty before the open admiration in his eyes.

"You won't find much there. Come over here," he said. He led the way to the coal heap. She followed in silence.

"Help yourself," he said grandly, with a wave of the arm, giving away what didn't belong to him. As a general rule he was consistently conscientious in these details, but under the influence of those eyes he cast honesty to the four winds of heaven.

"Thank you, sir," she said, and stooped to fill her basket.

The graceful movements and even poise of her figure appealed to him immensely. He was somewhat of an athlete, and he noted with pleasure the firm fulness of the arms (which were bare to the elbow), and the throat and neck (which were quite unprotected). Her jet black hair hung down below her waist in heavy, wavy tresses. Her short black skirt (faded to almost a light green) showed a neat ankle and fair proportion of shapely leg. He stood back and watched her closely. The skin, where it was visible about the face and throat, was rather dark, probably dirty, he thought, yet it did not seem offensive, though he was usually fastidious in such things. He took life very seriously did this young man, very seriously indeed; he was bent on making his fortune, his fortune and a name—nothing less. He was nineteen; older than his years in many things, younger in a lot.

The gipsy girl stood up. "Thank you, sir," she said again, and moved haltingly towards the gate, glancing up at him with her big brown eyes and dropping them again as she caught his.

"Don't go!" he said, stepping forward. "Put that basket down and come in and have a look at the engines. Have you ever seen a dynamo? An electric machine, you know. Thing that makes the light for those big lamps in the street."

"I've seen them at the shows."

"Shows?" he repeated, questioningly.

"Roundabouts," she explained.

"Oh!" he said. "That's nothing. Come in here!"

She put down the basket and followed him with a look of pleasure. She glanced furtively at the roof as they passed through the doorway, and stepped quickly close up to him, her eyes rolled widely round in obvious apprehension. He looked at her with amusement.

She caught his eye and smiled too. "Lovely," she said, as she glanced round the clean and well-kept little engine-room. "Lovely," she repeated, as her eyes were held by the bright lacquered copper switches and instruments set on the enamelled slate switchboard.

"It's like a church."

He looked at her quickly. "Have you ever been to church?"

"I've been inside and I've looked in through the windows," she answered.

"What do you do on Sundays?" he asked.

"Nothing."

"I work on Sundays, the same as any other day," he said.

"It's wicked to work on Sunday," she said.

"Or any other time," he added, smiling.

"Gipsies don't do much work," she admitted, smiling too.

"I think I'll turn gipsy."

"You'll go a long way before you see gipsies your colour," she said, glancing at his fresh face and light brown hair.

He held out his hand suddenly. "Look here! Tell my fortune, will you?"

She took him by the wrist and gazed at his palm earnestly for some minutes seeming to feel his pulse all the while.

"Good," she said, "very good," and dropping his hand, moved to the door.

He looked at her curiously, the fun had faded from her face, the liquid eyes seemed heavily shaded with sorrow. He stepped after her.

"Do you people really believe what you say?" he asked.

"Yes. Good, very good—for you," she answered, and passed through the door. With the sky overhead and the air of heaven on her face, she altered at once. "Thank you, sir, for the coal." She smiled brightly.

"Don't mention it," he said. "Come over again, will you? I want to talk to you." He looked into her eyes and she flushed with pleasure under the tan, or dirt, whichever it was.

He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a cake of chocolate (that was one of the things in which he was younger than his years). "I say, do you eat chocolate?"

She took it shyly.

He watched her bite a piece off and noticed the even regularity of her teeth, and the perfect shape of her mouth, though the lips were somewhat full.

"When will you come again? To-morrow? Oh! I forgot! To-morrow I shall be on all night. Will you come over early in the morning, or any time between midnight and eight o'clock in the morning? I'll bring you down some chocolate, if you like it."

"Thank you, sir."

"Will you come?"

"Yes," she answered, and her head took a gentle droop downwards, half averted, the long lashes swept her cheek and a rich red flushed beneath the russet brown of her skin.

He looked at her with pleasure, he felt his own colour rising a little too. He experienced a strange thrill, he felt older somehow, a sense of responsibility, of protection.

She turned and went away, glancing back over her shoulder as she went.

He went inside, and spoke to the Scotsman. "We'll put the engine on now, Mac." He busied himself with the engine and the switchboard. The girl was lost to sight and memory, but a sense, a something remained.

Next day the young engineer went on duty at midnight; he passed the gipsy camp on his way; four caravans stood silent and dark, and five ragged tents showed faint and ghostly in the moonlight, a fire smouldered in one corner. At the works he relieved another young man like himself, and the bearded highlander. They put on their hats and coats and bade him good-night, and he was left alone, all alone in the dimly lighted engine room with nothing running, everything still, except for the ghostly, uncanny rattle of the steam condensing in the now idle steam pipes.

Going into the little room which served as office, mess room, and test room combined, he took off his hat and coat and rolled back his shirt sleeves. He was a well built young man, standing just on six feet in his boots, with regular, handsome features and strong, prominent chin and nose; the arms that he exposed to view were substantial and very muscular, the hands were spread by the use of hand tools, they were not pretty, but very strong and serviceable. He walked briskly out and carefully looked all round—the plant, the switchboard, the engines, the recording instrument, the battery and boilers; he opened the furnace doors and gazed in at the fires to see that they were properly "banked;" then he went round with a scribbling block and took the meter readings, carefully entering them in the log book; then he opened the door and stepped out into the northern summer night.

He looked round on the fair prospect with extreme pleasure, the hills all round with the mountains in the background, the irregular patches of wood, the few straggling houses showing white and distinct in the moonlight, the little town close by with its few twinkling lights; all spoke to him of peace and pleasure yet strangely, too, of ambition. He would own one of those houses on the hillside as a summer resort. Time would tell, he had no doubt, he was quite confident, he felt it in him. He worked while other fellows played. Worked! Lord! Yes! he stoked boilers and drove engines, he cleaned brass work and did navvies' work, all for ten shillings per week. He smiled, the idea did not depress him in the least.

Suddenly the figure of a girl appeared round the corner of the building. The gipsy girl, he knew her figure at once. He knew she would come, but he had not expected her at this hour.

She advanced slowly, shyly; as she turned the corner she had been active, full of life; she seemed to droop as she caught sight of him standing alone in his shirt sleeves in the moonlight. She came close up and stood before him.

"I've come," she said.

She raised her eyes and looked into his—they seemed all alight, veritably to sparkle like gems.

He was rather taken aback, but did not show it; his features were impassive, he also felt a tingling of the pulses, and his eyes showed that as he looked into hers.

"Come inside," he said; he led the way, he wanted time to think.

"This way," he continued. She followed him, a pace to the rear.

He led the way into the little office and pulled out a chair. "Sit down," he said.

She sat down, somewhat uncomfortably, somewhat nervously, as one who was not used to it.

Going to his coat hanging on the wall he took a packet of chocolate from it. She watched him with a sort of dog-like observance.

"Here you are," he said. He handed her the chocolate, drew another chair out, and sat down facing her.

"What have you been doing all day?"

"Gathering sticks," she answered. He noticed that she did not speak with her mouth full, it seemed a natural refinement, perhaps because she observed him carefully finish munching a piece of chocolate before he put the question to her—anyhow she did the same.

They sat and looked at each other in silence for some minutes. He was observing her very closely; he noticed that her hands were clean, comparatively; they were not large and very well shaped, it was obvious that she did not do much work; everything about her denoted natural grace and, it seemed to him, refinement; but ever and anon her eyes rolled widely round, taking in everything; in this confined atmosphere, sitting on this made-to-order chair, she was obviously not at ease.

He drew his chair up closer to her and looked into her eyes. "You're very beautiful. Are all gipsy girls beautiful?"

She flushed, gave her head a little toss, slightly imperious. "My mother is the Queen of the gipsies."

"Then you are a princess. You look it. Tell me what you do all day."

"Nothing," she answered, simply.

"That's good," he laughed.

"What do you do?" she asked.

"Everything," he said, and laughed again.

"Where do you come from?"

"England, the south of England, Gloucestershire. Have you been there?"

"Yes," she answered. "I've been through Gloucestershire and Somersetshire and Devonshire and Warwickshire and Staffordshire. I've been all round England and Scotland."

His eyes lighted up. "Have you been to Cheltenham?"

"Yes," she said, and told him about it and the country round; she seemed to have observed everything. They talked of the counties and the people, the fields and the woods, the birds and beasts, till she stood up and pushed the chair back.

"I don't like this—let's go out and sit on the wall by the river."

So they went outside and sat on the little low wall with the smooth cement top that marked the tunnel where the water pipes went into the works.

They sat down side by side, eating chocolates and saying nothing, looking at the east and watching the sky begin to lighten with the first faint indication of dawn. All was hushed, and silent the river at their feet swirled past in glassy, rapid smoothness, on the opposite bank the sedges stirred and rustled stealthily, just moved by the scarcely perceptible breeze.

They sat there for a long time, exchanging occasional remarks and lapsing long between replies. The spirit of the night, the silent, pensive night, seemed on the girl and he did not want to talk. The cloak of peace was around her; she was at one with nature; she laughed in the sunshine and wept in the rain. To the young engineer the silence of the night had a very different message; this universal peace and stillness spoke to him, somehow, of strife, vigorous strife, of great difficulties attempted and overcome, of progress, eternal progress; he made many resolves of what he would do, and the more he had done, the more, he felt, he would be able to enjoy these moments of rest and reflection. Some day he would marry, and this was the sort of girl he would like, a refined and educated edition of this; some one with a soul, a mind, and a body, not a mere clothes-horse. Her remarks had shown a natural refinement, a depth of feeling and thought that exactly suited his own, she appreciated nature and that was the foundation of all things to him.

The dawn was rapidly brightening; on the opposite side of the river a stoat poked an inquiring nose through the long grass at the top of the bank. Silently the girl gripped his arm and pointed to it, together they watched it come cautiously into full view sniffing the air; very slowly, very cautiously, it made its way, its head upraised, moving with a graceful swaying motion from side to side; it was the caution of the pursuer and not of the pursued, there was no terror in it. The young engineer watched it in fascination, then it disappeared again in the grass.

"The stoat gets a better time than the rabbit," he propounded, after a thoughtful pause.

"Rabbits!" she said, in disgust, "rabbits are good to eat, that's all. Everything kills rabbits, they play and play and never think—I've watched them for hours and hours."

He jumped up. "I must go and have a look round inside now." He looked at her steadily with approval, and more; there was a light in her eyes as she looked up at him too.

"Will you come over to-morrow night?" he asked. There was a touch of suspense in his voice.

"Yes," she said.

"Good-bye then," he held out his hand.

She took it somewhat shyly.

He held her rather long, looking at her thoughtfully, he seemed in doubt, then he slowly released her hand and turned away. "Good-bye till to-morrow then," he said.

"Good-bye," she answered.

Next night he was outside before half-past twelve, waiting. He saw her leave the camp and come towards him springing lightly from tuft to tuft over the rough ground.

"Hullo!" she said, and looked up at him, her wondrous eyes beaming pleasure.

"How are you?" he answered, gravely, shaking hands. The limitations of the Englishman bound him fast. "Come inside," he continued.

She drew back with a little expression of repugnance. "I don't like houses," she said.

"I've got some sweets in there. Come in and get them, and then we'll go outside again."

She followed him meekly, and he took her into the little office and tilted the contents of four different little bags on to a clean newspaper.

"There you are!" he said.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, with childish glee.

He shovelled them into the bags again and handed them to her.

"There you are, those are for you; now we'll go outside."

"You take some too." She opened the bags and held them out to him.

"Thanks," he answered, gravely selecting two or three from each packet.

They walked in silence to the door, then he paused under the lamp. "Look here, you never told my fortune. Finish it, will you?"

She stopped and looked at the hand he held out under the light. "I don't know very much yet. You're very strong."

"Fairly," he agreed, doubling up his biceps. "You said I had a good fortune. How do you know that?"

"By the feel," she answered. She took him by the wrist again and seemed lost in wonder. "Think of what you'd like," she said.

He shut his eyes and conjured up his favourite vision. A great industrial centre; a huge machinery shop; teeming workmen, strong and greasy; and himself in the centre, thinking, feeling, living for it all.

"Oh!" she said.

He opened his eyes to find her gazing at him in open wonder and astonishment.

"Have you ever had a wild rabbit in your hands and felt its heart beat?"

"Can't say that I have."

"I have. And a weasel and a stoat with their heads tied. And cats and dogs and birds and all sorts. You feel like a dog, a trained fighting dog when he's going to fight—and win."

He smiled, somewhat indulgently. "Very probably," he said. "I'm a bit of a sportsman, football, and that sort of thing, you know. I've got a pistol in there; I put in time shooting rats along the river bank when I'm by myself and not reading."

"Come on down by the river bank now and I'll show you some birds' nests. I found them to-day."

"Wait till it gets lighter," he answered. "We'll climb up that hill and watch the sun rise."

So they started off together across the intervening space of moorland, the tall athletic young man and the slender graceful girl, and the great silver moon looked down at it all with a parental smile, as he has on countless such scenes since the birth of man.

"I'll race you," the engineer said.

"All right," she answered, and broke into a run, bounding lightly over the rough ground like a young deer. But the trained athlete kept pace with her easily, he did not pass her, but kept a pace behind; she glanced back and sprinted faster; still he hung on her rear till they were within a hundred yards of the hill.

"A final spurt," he said, and she bounded away again. He could have passed her then, too, but he did not.

"I won," she said.

"Yes, you won," he agreed, looking at her with marked approval. Her head was thrown back a little and her breast heaved steadily, taking great deep long, breaths. She was slightly flushed and her eyes sparkled brightly. They had run a quarter of a mile, and without a pause they went straight up the hill taking it quickly and easily.

It took them a quarter of an hour to get to the top, up the zigzag, stony pathway through the pine wood. She led the way and brought him out to a little clearing at the head of a miniature precipice.

"There!" she said, and pointed up the valley of the river straight at the lightening dawn.

"Grand!" he ejaculated, and they sat down side by side on the bed of soft brown pine needles where the ground sloped gradually towards the cliff. The deep gloom of the pine wood closed behind them like a curtain; down below, at their feet, they could see the tops of the trees in the gorge; out in front spread the beautiful valley with the silent river threading its way down the heart of it.

They sat and gazed in silence, listening to the indistinct rustle of nocturnal life in the wood behind them, and the air above: a rustle of leaves, a faint crackle of twigs, a little scream, and some woodland tragedy was past and gone, some tiny life was sped.

An owl hooted above them many times, long-drawn, awe-inspiring, suited to the night.

"That's a brown owl," she said.

"How do you know it's not a barn owl?" he asked.

She looked at him in wonder. "Why! it's a different tune."

"Tune?" he repeated, in amusement. "I didn't know there was any difference," he added, apologetically.

"Listen!" she commanded, holding his arm suddenly. There was a flutter of wings in a tree not far away, a little agonized scream, then all was silent. "That's a weasel, or a stoat got a bird," she explained.

"Weasels don't climb trees," he said.

"Don't they?" she asked, in amused sarcasm.

"I didn't know," he admitted, meekly.

The dawn was brightening rapidly, lighting up all the valley, turning the sombre river to a thread of silver, throwing out the white farmhouses into strong relief, stirring birds and beasts to a new life.

They stood up and gazed over it enchanted.

"Look at that man!" she said.

He followed the direction of her finger. "I can't see a man."

"There in the yard, carrying a pail."

"Good Lord! I can see a bit of a black dot, that is all."

She laughed with amusement. "A black dot," she repeated. "What's the matter with your eyes?"

He looked into her marvellous orbs with wonder and admiration. "I'm usually considered to have good eyes," he said, "but they're not in it with yours. You must be related to the golden eagle."

"I've seen a golden eagle's nest, and killed one too."

He pulled out his watch. "By Jove! I must get back to the works, somebody will be stealing the dynamos, or the coal," he added, looking at her with a sudden smile.

She smiled too and they disappeared into the wood, down the stony paths and across the bit of moorland. He stopped at the gate of the works and held out his hand.

"Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

He held her hand, looking into her eyes. "You'll come again to-morrow?"

"Yes," she answered, steadily looking at him with her wonderful eyes.

Still retaining his grip of her hand, he pulled her gently towards him.

She came, somewhat reluctantly; the colour overspread her face. There was doubt in her eyes. He passed his disengaged arm round her neck and kissed her on her full red lips.

A wild wonder sprang to her eyes. "Gipsies don't kiss," she said, as she gazed at him.

"Don't they?" he said, "then I'll do it again in case you forget," and he did, a long kiss. He looked at her in astonished admiration, the deep colour that mantled on her cheek, and the vivid light in her eyes made a picture the like of which he had never seen.

She turned away and bounded off across the moorland to her people's camp. He watched her with bright eyes, she turned and waved a hand to him then disappeared among the caravans. He went into the little works very thoughtful for he knew that he was violently in love with this beautiful girl—this child of nature, and he seemed up against a blank wall.

He paced the little engine room slowly, chin on breast, gazing unseeing at the tiles on the floor. "I'll tell her not to come again," he said to himself. For he was a very conscientious and a very ambitious young man.

That was decided. He threw back his shoulders and raised his head with a feeling of relief. Going out into the boiler house, he opened the furnace doors, and taking a fire rake in his hands, pushed back the banked fires and spread them over the grates, he sprinkled a few shovels full of coal over them, opened the dampers, blew down the gauge glasses, and went into his little office again to read.

Mostly he read technical works, but the book he picked up now contained the life story of George Stephenson. There was a full page portrait in it too: this fascinated the young engineer—he gazed at it long and earnestly. To him it seemed the face of the greatest of all Englishmen, of all men; statesmen, soldiers, philosophers, none of them had left such a monument behind them, none had done so much for civilization as this great man whose features he gazed upon. "And he was a fighter, too," he said to himself. "Beat the prize fighter bully of his village, and without training. He must have been always fit and lived very straight and clean." He put down the book and went outside.

The sun was now bright and powerful, but still low down in the sky. The young engineer gazed all around at the fairy scene, enchanted with the beauty of the landscape; yet he carried in his mind's eye still the frontispiece of the book, a strong, sturdy figure, and a firm, composed, yet kindly face. The picture seemed to haunt him. "The ideal engineer," he said to himself, "would never get angry, only think, think, deeper and deeper. He would be absolutely firm, but not a brute. The engineer must handle men as well as material, and this north country collier did it!" He felt his biceps. "A great engineer of to-day has laid it down that physical fitness is the essential ground work of engineering success."

"Why not me too?" he asked himself.

Next night the gipsy girl appeared earlier than usual, he was not outside, and she ventured timidly in, walking on tip-toe, her eyes glancing quickly all round her. She advanced to the foot of the switchboard steps and stayed there.

He saw her then and went down to speak to her. She held out her hand. He took it gravely. She looked up at him underneath her long lashes, then her eyes drooped, the colour mounted to her cheek, she let her hand rest limply in his. He looked at her steadily for a minute, holding her hand, then he drew her towards him and kissed her.

"You like kissing," he said. She looked up at him with all her soul in her wonderful dark eyes.

"Yes—you," she said, simply.

"Go and sit down, I've got some work to do yet. My coat's hanging up in the office there. There's some sweets in the pocket, take them out."

She went like an obedient child.

In ten minutes' time he went to her. "We'll go up on the hill again," he said, "and you shall tell me what all the sounds and squeaks and all that we hear in the wood mean."

So they started off, and at the edge of the wood a dusky shape scampered off from the grass and disappeared into the gloom.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Badger," she answered, promptly, in some surprise.

They commenced the ascent of the steep, stony path.

"Supposing I broke my leg, what would you do?" he asked.

"Carry you," she said.

"Think you could?"

She laughed, and going close up to him, put her arms round him and lifted him easily.

"Well done," he said.

They went to the top and sat down again in the old place, the little clearing, overlooking the valley. They sat for some time in silence.

"Who are you going to marry?" she asked.

He looked at her sharply. "Poor little devil," he thought, "is it possible—" Then he looked into her eyes very steadily, rather sadly. "I haven't any idea who I shall marry, yet," he said. "Probably some girl that I shall meet at home, some girl who lives in a house about the same size that my father lives in. A girl who reads and writes, and perhaps plays the piano and sings, who can look after a house and manage servants and see that everything is looked after properly. That is," he added, thoughtfully, "if I can ever make enough money to keep such a girl."

She was silent, and he thought perhaps he had been too brutal.

"I hope that she will be as beautiful and graceful as you, but one can't have everything."

"What does your father do?" she asked, and her tone was one of interested inquiry simply.

"He's a parson."

"Keeps a church?"

"Exactly, or the church keeps him."

"I can play the fiddle and concertina and sing," she said.

"Can you?" he asked, in surprise.

"Yes, father says I'm good."

"I've no doubt you are," he said, with some amusement. He wondered what the gipsy standard of music was.

Suddenly he noticed her raise her head, listening intently, he watched her with interest; the delicate nostrils quivered, she seemed to be smelling something.

"There's someone in the wood," she said.

"All right. Let 'em stop there."

"Come into the dark," she whispered. She moved silently into the shadow of the pine trees.

He was getting up to follow her when a rough looking man in a round fur cap, a suit with big poacher pockets to the coat and gaiters protecting his trousers, and carrying a big stick under his arm, came out into the moonlight.

"So I've caught you, have I?"

"What do you mean?" The young engineer's tone was angry, imperious.

"You knows, you an' that girl. I seen her go away." Without more ado, he rushed viciously at the engineer and lashed out a sweeping blow with his bludgeon.

The young athlete sprang nimbly aside, and as the gipsy turned to make a second onslaught, the girl came out of the darkness of the wood behind and sprang on his back like a wild cat, pulling him over backwards and wrenching the stick from his grasp. She threw it to the engineer. "Take that," she said, "and watch him."

The gipsy, cursing and spitting like an angry cat, lashed out with his feet and caught the girl in the ribs.

With a little sob, like a punctured balloon, she sank down, a huddled, helpless heap. The gipsy lashed out again at her and then scrambled to his feet.

The engineer stood over him. "You swine," he said, and he brought the stick down over the man's shoulders for all he was worth. It was ash and very stout; there was not much "give" in it. He gave a coughing gasp, then closed with his assailant.

They wrestled fiercely. The gipsy was shorter and not so heavy, but exceedingly strong; he strove to work the engineer backwards towards the cliff, his hands sought his throat.

The girl sat up. "Mind the edge," she screamed. "Throw him over."

The engineer had dropped the stick, he passed his forearm across the gipsy's throat and forced his head backwards so that to save his neck or his back the man had to relax his grip. Instantly the engineer dealt him a severe blow on the chin with his fist.

The gipsy staggered backwards.

The latent savagery of the chimpanzee and the fierce deep passion of the sportsman who had been "fouled" were aroused side by side in the breast of the young engineer. He sprang forward again and struck the falling man another furious blow; he seemed to yield easily; it was almost like striking the empty air. There was not that sense of springy resistance which is the whole source of pleasure in a blow well delivered and reaching well home.

With a sudden chilling of the blood he realized that the man was over the edge, falling downwards on to the trees. He felt sick with horror and tried to throw himself back, only to discover that the impetus of his own forward progress was too much for him. He slowed up and hung for (it seemed to him) many minutes just balanced, then gradually tilted forwards towards the tops of the trees that showed down below in the faint light of the rising dawn. He seemed to be moving very slowly—slowly, forwards. He glanced out over the valley below him and got a clear impression of the view; he saw an owl flit past between himself and the tree tops; he heard it hoot, its long drawn, melancholy hoot. Then he felt a sudden jerk behind, something pulled him backwards, he felt his centre of gravity shift till his legs had control of his body again. Then the blood rushed from his heart with a mighty bound; he sank down on the soft bed of the weather-browned pine needles.

"Good God!"

The girl leaned over him, her eyes alight. "I thought I was over too," she said.

"I thought that brute had killed you," he said.

She stretched herself and suddenly relaxed with a little gasp. "I'm all right. I've got a pain, that's all."

The horror of the whole situation was suddenly borne in upon him.

"Holy God!" he said. "That's man killed."

"I hope so," she said.

"Hush!" he said, "you mustn't say that. If he is, I'm a murderer."

"Then I hope he's not."

"Who is he?" he asked.

"My sweetheart—the man I'm going to marry—if he's alive," she answered, simply.

"Oh! Great God in heaven!" he said, and he held out his hands to the rising sun, gazing out on the smiling valley and beautiful hills in the peaceful stillness of the early dawn.

CHAPTER II

They wended their way slowly down the steep path, the girl giving little gasps of pain at every few steps.

"Look here!" he said, "you're damaged. Let me carry you."

"I'm all right. I've got a pain, that's all."

"Rot!" he said, and without more ado he picked her up in his arms. She was very light considering the strength she had displayed. "Say how you are easiest," he said.

"Quite easy like this," she answered.

So they proceeded slowly down the stony, rocky hillside, the girl cradled in his arms with her arms round his neck easing her weight as much as possible.

He had to stop and rest frequently, laying her gently on a bed of pine needles or moss.

"You're very strong," she said.

"Yes, by God, too strong sometimes," he said, bitterly.

She put her fingers gently on his wrist and felt his pulse. "You're a winner," she said.

"Meaning that I shall out distance the constable," he asked with a grim humour.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Carstairs. Jack Carstairs. It'll be in all the papers soon. Can you read?"

"No."

"Lucky girl."

So carrying on a disjointed conversation they worked their way round to the foot of the cliff.

"Shall I take you back to the camp or shall I have a look for the—man, first?"

"We'll have a look for Sam first. I'm all right on level ground."

"No, you're not. You stay there." He put her down on the ground, and made his way through the trees to the cliff.

He searched up and down; there was no sign of a body dead or alive, no sign of derangement, nothing to indicate tragedy. There was a rustle of bird life all round him and a cheerful chorus of early morning song in the bushes outside, for this was just on the edge of the wood. He went up and down gazing over head and under foot; the trees here were mostly firs, young spruce firs with heavy, carpety foliage interlocking, shutting out the light.

He went back to the girl. "I'll take you back and go for a doctor while your people come and look for him."

"He's gone home," she said.

That one word "home" is used to describe a vast number of widely differing places.

"I hope to God he has—to the camp, I mean."

Picking her up in his arms again, he carried her out across the strip of moorland to the camp.

The gipsies were out and astir, there seemed to be a sort of meeting going on among the tents and caravans. Jack Carstairs walked into the centre of them and deposited his burden on the ground.

The girl sat up. "There's Sam," she said, pointing to a young gipsy sitting propped up against the wheel of a caravan. His face was deathly pale, and one eye was bulged out like a small balloon.

The young engineer's heart gave a great bound at the sight of him.

"So you were not killed," he said.

"'Taint no fault of yours," the man growled. The gipsies gathered round.

"Where's mother?" the girl asked.

A woman of about fifty, eagle-eyed, black-haired, descended the steps of a particularly well-appointed caravan and went over to the girl, and felt her carefully all over. "Who did it?" she asked.

"Sam kicked me," the girl answered.

The gipsies made no sound, but dark glistening eyes rolled from the recumbent gipsy to the tall, fair-haired young Englishman.

"Who's this?" the mother asked.

"The man at the electric light, that gave me the coal."

The young man felt a pair of piercing black eyes gazing searchingly into his, they seemed to see right into his brain: he was aware of a strange tingling sensation in his blood as the woman looked at him.

"Are you going to marry the girl?" she asked,

"No!" he said, simply.

The gipsies gathered in closer.

"Come here," the woman said.

He advanced and looked her squarely in the eyes.

She caught hold of his wrist, and lifting his hand examined his palm. She gazed at it long and earnestly, ever and anon glancing up into his eyes. She dropped it suddenly.

"Alright! Go away," she said.

The little circle of gipsy men fell back and opened out for him to go his way.

"What's the matter with that man?" he asked, pointing to Sam.

"Broke his leg," a gipsy man answered.

"What saved him?"

"The trees—he fell on the fir trees."

He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out all the money he had, about seven shillings. "Here, get the girl whatever you can. Shall I send a doctor?

"Doctor?" the woman repeated in scorn, "no!"

"Alright," he said, and made his way unmolested past the silent, fierce-eyed men.

He went back to the little works and fired up the boilers and got steam ready for the day man to start the engine when he came in.

That night he went down about ten o'clock and crossed over to the gipsies. The whole camp was gathered in a circle round the embers of a fire.

He stopped on the outside edge. "How's the girl?" he asked.

"Alright," the old woman answered.

"And the man?"

"Alright," she repeated.

He was turning to go away when she spoke again in singularly sweet and winning tones. "Won't you come and sit down, sir?"

"Thanks," he answered, stopping in doubt.

"And father'll play."

A young gipsy immediately got up and disappeared into the flashy looking caravan, to reappear with a violin and bow in his hands.

An old man who had lain stretched out before the fire arose and took the instrument; he fingered it lovingly. Carstairs looked at him with curiosity; he was attired in an old frock coat, green with age, and the silk facings threadbare; straightened out he would have been as tall as Carstairs himself, but he was bent and bowed, his knees tottered, his face was the uniform purple-red of the confirmed drunkard. He tried the strings with his fingers, tuning up. They brought forward a chair, and he sat down. The face, Carstairs thought, showed something of refinement and good breeding even in its bloated, blotched condition. He pushed back his greasy cap and showed a head of fine silver-grey hair; the mouth was in constant motion, twitching, compressing, relaxing. He passed the bow across the strings, making a harsh, jarring scream; then he seemed to settle down, and Carstairs was entranced.

He dropped down beside one of the gipsies and sat silent, lost in beautiful, entrancing thought. All that was best in his life came back to him, his highest thoughts and loftiest ambition were stirred and enlarged, his resolution strengthened, his soul uplifted. He glanced round the circle of rough, mahogany-coloured faces. Dark eyes glistened like precious jewels in the flickering firelight, the rough lines of the features seemed softened.

And all this achieved by a tottering, degraded old drunkard.

The player passed on from tune to tune, only pausing to take a drink from a bottle that the old woman handed him. Many of the strains were familiar to the young engineer; he understood they were "masterpieces" difficult to render. And wonder and a great pity stirred in him side by side at the awful contrast, the inexpressible beauty of the music and the despicable condition of the player. But he, too, seemed to straighten out and grow taller; he stood up, the mouth became steadier, the bleared eyes seemed quite brilliant in the dim light.

Slowly dying down, growing gradually less, the music stopped. Then dropping bow and fiddle the musician made straight for the brass-finished, leather-upholstered caravan, and disappeared inside.

There was silence round the little circle of the gipsies, no one stirred; Carstairs was lost in reverie, ideas thronged through his brain; he was lost to the present, his soul seemed free of his body, delving about in the unknown depths of the future.

A young gipsy started up from the circle and picked up the fiddle and bow. For Carstairs that broke the spell, he looked up and found the gipsy woman's eyes upon him.

He arose and went over to her. "What lovely music," he said. "Who is he?"

"My husband," she answered.

"Oh!" he said. He held out his hand. "Good-bye! you must thank him very much for me."

She took his hand and looked into his eyes in the fixed firelight. "You like music?" she asked.

"Very much," he answered.

He felt a strange feeling of friendliness for this woman, her presence seemed to give him a sensation of comfort, of hope.

Wending his way out of the gipsy camp he crossed to the little works.

"Sorry I'm late."

"Oh, it's alright."

They passed the technical news of the day, then the bearded Scotsman and the other young engineer departed.

Carstairs stood at the door watching them go away along the winding path beside the river, towards the little town. He hadn't altogether shaken off the reverie induced by the music; he gazed out into the silence of the night; in the beautiful half light of the northern night, he could see far up the valley. Long after his companions had disappeared from view he stood there gazing out over the silent landscape, and for once his thoughts were not entirely of himself, of his ambitions and resolves: he wondered at the old man who played the beautiful music, the old woman and the girl, their offspring; it seemed incredible, the girl was so different from either of them. He went inside, closing the wicket gate in the big doors behind him, then going into the little office he produced a drawing-board and instruments and settled down resolutely to work; for he had ideas, many of them, and his occupation gave him ample time for thought.

Next night he went down early to call at the camp again, but when he got there, he found, with a disappointment he was astonished at, the gipsies were gone.

"Cancelled out," he said to himself, for Carstairs thought mathematically. Still, as he spoke, he felt a doubt if the factor were really eliminated.

So time, relentless time, passed away, and Carstairs went his daily round, working and studying, planning and dreaming. Very often in the early summer mornings when he had been on all night, and found it impossible to study any more, he would take his pistol and wander out along the river bank looking for rats or water voles. Always the vision of the gipsy girl came back to him. Her verdict "you're a winner," occurred to him as he fired at the rats or selected some inanimate mark to aim at, and always hit, for his hand was strong and steady and his eye very keen. One day as he wandered so, pistol in hand, there was a sudden swirl in the water, a gleam of silver shot heavenwards, he pointed the pistol and pulled just as the salmon touched the water again, it dived instantly, but there was something wrong with it, the white belly seemed unduly prominent, it was obviously impeded by something.

"Hit! by Jove!" Carstairs said, as the big fish came to the surface and lay quite still floating down with the stream. "A winner," he said, and he wondered thoughtfully if it would always be so.

Then he went on holiday, ten days, back to his home in Gloucestershire, the country vicarage and the Cotswold hills, where the pick of the old prize fighters came from; and there was much of the prize fighter in Carstairs' composition, perhaps it was in the air.

The Reverend Hugh Carstairs was tall and well built, silver haired and clean shaven; his religion was of the comfortable order; he did not consider it necessary to be miserable in order to be good. He was clean in mind and body, rather sporting and rather intellectual. His good lady was somewhat similar, less sporting and less intellectual, more homely and more pious. The product of the union was six well-grown, healthy Englishmen. Jack was the youngest.

His parents received him with undemonstrative but deep-felt pleasure. Up to the present Jack had been, if not the most prosperous, the least expensive of the six; engineering to him had been more or less compulsory because cheap, or comparatively so. The other five had absorbed large sums in their education, and up to the present made small return on capital invested. Jack didn't gamble or drink expensive drinks; he didn't paint pictures or play any musical instrument. As far as his parents knew he had had no love affairs. He was a very sober young man. His mother said he feared God. His father, that he respected himself. The truth was that he had an ambition to bulk very big at some future date, and so had not the time for indulgence in the ordinary common or garden vices and pastimes.

He kissed his mother and shook hands solemnly with his father.

"I want to take some of your books away with me when I go, guv'nor," he said.

His parents looked at him with approval. "What sort of books?"

"Oh! 'maths.' I find I don't know as much mathematics as I thought I did."

His mother looked somewhat disappointed, his father pleased. The dividends on classics did not pan out very well in his experience.

"I'm working out an idea, you know; rather good thing if it's workable. Want some more 'maths,' to read up the authorities on the subject."

"A patent?"

"Yes."

"Ah," his mother sighed, something seemed to touch a sensitive chord. "You know Phillip is going out to India?"

"Yes. Plantation, isn't it?"

"Yes, in a very nice part of the country, I believe."

"What's he going to get?"

"Twenty pounds a month," his father answered.

"That isn't much for a man twenty-four years old, is it? Fitters get that out there."

"My dear boy!" His mother was grieved.

"What's the matter, mater?"

"You have such a sordid way of looking at things."

"Have I? I'm sorry. The aim and object of life at present is to make money."

The Rev. Hugh regarded his son with quiet approval. "It keeps you occupied," he said, "and as long as you're honest."

Jack was silent. "As a general rule I am," he said, at length. "Stole a basketful of coal the other day, though."

"Coal? Whatever for?"

"Gave it away to the poor." He waved his arm lightly with a smile.

His father smiled too, he had Jack's eyes, grey and shrewd. "To a certain extent the end justified the means," he said, "That is, in the common court of our conscience. I suppose it was very cold up in Scotland?"

"On that particular day it was, I think, if anything warmer than it is down here to-day. I should like to be whitewashed, but—the end was a very pretty gipsy girl, whom I afterwards kissed, and punched her affianced husband—broke his leg."

"Good gracious! you're joking."

"Not a bit, mater. I'm going to shine as the villain of the family; it's in me, for under the given circumstance, I'd do the same again." He gave them the main outlines of the case, concisely, hiding nothing.

"I think you'd better leave Scotland," his mother said.

"So do I, mater," he agreed. "I want more money."

The Rev. Hugh's grey eyes twinkled merrily. "Everything comes to him who goes and fetches it," he said.

"That's an engineering precept, guv'nor. An engineer is a man who fetches things. You ought to have been an engineer, not a bally old parson."

"Jack!"

"Sorry, mater, that's a lapsus fungus, or words to that effect."

"Lapsus linguæ, you mean."

"Is it? Oh! fungus seemed to me rather suggestive of the tongue."

Jack was standing up with his back to the mantel-piece. His father smiled, then he stood up, too, and, laying a hand on his son's broad shoulder, looked with solemn, benevolent eyes into the eyes that were level with, and so like, his own. "Go on fetching things, my boy, but never forget that the object of life is happiness. And happiness is only possible to an easy conscience. It is nice to win the match, but better to lose than cheat. I should leave these gipsy girls alone, if I were you."

"Singular, if you please, guv'nor, it's only one, and she's gone away."

"Quite so. I was generalizing."

Jack was thoughtful. "Up to the present," he said, "it is not necessary to generalize, but thanks all the same."

The Rev. Hugh looked at his son, at the steady eyes and close, firm mouth; the lines were very definite, almost cruel; such men do not have many love affairs. "I think you can take care of yourself," he said.

Jack was perfectly sober. "I think so, too," he agreed.

CHAPTER III

The vicarage at Chilcombe, Jack's home, was a fairly large, well-built house with plenty of ground round it, forming a complete rectangle. Two sides of it (bordering the road) were bounded by seven-foot walls, a third side was a thick, tall hedge, and the fourth (furthest from the house) was a brook, or river—a sort of cross, a big brook or a small river—deeply bordered with willow trees and blackberry bushes. Two close wooden gates in the seven-foot wall opened on to a small brown-gravel drive, which led by a single short curve through a shrubbery of laurel bushes to the front entrance porch. A big room at the other side of the house opened out by French windows on to a lawn. There was a big chestnut tree in one corner of this lawn, with a seat round it; in the summer there were usually two or three hammock chairs spread out in the shade of it also. Jack was lounging in one of these latter the morning after his arrival, while his mother did knitting in a more sedate-looking but less comfortable chair at his side, when Mrs Bevengton and Bessie came round the corner of the house. Mrs Bevengton was the doctor's wife, and Bessie was her daughter. Bessie was fairly tall and distinctly plump—"fatty" Jack used to call her when he was younger; she was not really fat, though not angularly hard; there was no superfluous tissue about her. She could play tennis all day long, run with the beagles, or row two or three miles on the river without getting "done up." She had a good pink colour and dimples on each cheek which were nearly always in evidence, for she smiled at most things. Her hair was light brown and curly; it was always straying out of place and framing her happy, smiling face in little light brown curves.

Bessie said, "How are you Jack?" and Jack answered, "First-class. How are you?"

Mrs Bevengton looked at him critically. "What are you doing now, Jack?" she asked.

"Earning ten bob a week, Mrs Bevengton," he answered, with just a flicker of a smile. The doctor's wife was inclined to be a materialist in worldly matters.

Bessie's dimples burst into renewed prominence, and a frizzy curl strayed out from over her forehead. She said nothing, but her blue eyes danced in the sunlight as she glanced round the three faces in front of her, and endeavoured to suppress the rebellious curl.

Mrs Carstairs looked severe. "How absurdly you talk, Jack."

"The truth is usually absurd, mater."

Mrs Bevengton continued to regard him with a critical, calculating eye.

"That's just a start, of course?" she said.

"Well, I hope it's not the finish, Mrs Bevengton."

Mrs Bevengton looked at Bessie, then back again at Jack. He seemed very steady-looking and confident; she had only a vague notion of what he was doing, but had an impression that electrical engineering was a safe sort of thing, displacing the Church as the thing to put the fool of the family into. Still, the Carstairs so far had not "got on."

"I suppose it's a good er—profession, isn't it, Jack?"

Jack looked at his hands which would have compared favourably with a young carpenter's. "Fairly good, I think," he said, "for the right men. About the same as doctoring, only more pleasant—to the young mind at least."

Mrs Carstairs smiled approval.

The doctor's wife was puzzled. He spoke too soberly for a Carstairs—and nineteen. She looked at Mrs Carstairs. "When does Phillip leave?"

"Oh, not for six weeks yet."

Jack looked at Bessie. "Come on, Bessie! I'll give you a game of tennis. Expect you'll beat me easily now. Haven't had a game since last summer."

"Don't they play in Scotland?"

"Oh, yes, they play, but I don't."

So they played, and it was very close, but Bessie did not win.

"I believe you've been practising," she said.

"No, I haven't," he answered. "Come on down to the brook and see if that old trout is still there."

"That old trout," was an ancient retainer of the Carstairs family, weighing some two to two and a half pounds. Six successive sons had tried to catch him: bright red worms, "dopping" blue bottles, artificial flies, gentles and green caterpillars had been tried in vain; the veteran shook his head and slowly winked the other eye as he lazily flapped his tail in the gentle current, regarding the tempting baits and eager faces peering over the blackberry bushes with easy unconcern. Twice they had waded through the shallows, three abreast, with butterfly nets, after frightening him from his deep hole, but without success: once, indeed, with the aid of wire netting, was the speckled warrior landed, high and dry; but after performing a joyous war-dance, hand in hand, round the panting, kicking champion, the means were voted underhand and mean—not sporting—so by unanimous consent he was consigned to the deep again, never afterwards, by fair means or foul, to be lured thence. In later days he reigned supreme, monarch of all he surveyed, for many yards on either side of the willow tree, his seat. It was considered the correct thing, when on holidays, to feed him with worms and gentles and other tit-bits.

So, rackets in hands, they strolled down to the brook and peeped cautiously over the top of a blackberry bush, down into a deep hole under the roots of an overhanging willow tree; silently they pressed forward, for the bush had grown and obscured the view more than it used to. Suddenly there was a slip, a little scream, a sound of tearing dress material, a splash, and Bessie was in the stream.

Jack knew that Bessie could not swim, one of the few athletic accomplishments she had not acquired. The water was six or seven feet deep for two or three hundred yards on either side of the hole, which was nine or ten feet deep, the banks were very steep.

Without a second's pause, Jack burst his way through the bushes and into the stream; the brambles clung to him and let him down gently. He found Bessie floundering hopelessly, head under water, one leg elevated in the air, held securely by a tangle of brambles, so keeping her in an inverted position.

He grabbed an overhanging branch of the willow tree with one hand and reached down for Bessie's hair with the other. He succeeded in raising her head above water. She clutched his arm frantically, half-unconscious, she had quite lost her reason.

"Steady! Steady!" he said, soothingly. "Kick your leg free."

She was unable to comprehend, so he gave a vigorous tug at her; the brambles yielded pliantly, but did not let go.

"Damn the thing," he said. He tugged again, and the fresh green willow branch broke off short at the rotten old trunk. Bessie's head sank under water again, and she clutched him in a despairing grasp; he "trod water" vigorously and tried to pull her clear of the bramble; then he tried to get free of her grasp so that he might get at the bramble at close quarters, but she clung to him in despairing energy, and she was very strong. Twice he lifted her head out of water and let her get a breath, but the effort drove him very deep down himself, and he was beginning to feel the strain.

He looked round him in search of inspiration. The water was running very placidly and calmly past him, all dappled with round spots of sunlight coming through the leaves of the trees. A little way off, his mother and Bessie's mother sat quietly chatting in the shade of the chestnut tree, a cow grazed peacefully very near the opposite bank; he could hear the steady "munch" of her jaws; a willow wren trilled out a pretty little warble on a tree near by; and Bessie was drowning. Jack wondered what to do. It never occurred to him to shout for help, he never shouted for help—he was not built that way.

"Her grip will relax when she gets unconscious," he said to himself, and thinking so, he pulled her head deeper under water and tugged to get free of her grip. This time he succeeded, and instantly hauled himself up the bank by means of the entangled leg and set it free. It was very simple; two interlaced briars formed a stirrup, that was all. He raised the foot and it was free at once. Then he dropped back into the water and getting under her, raised her head, and swam with her down stream where the bank shelved down; getting out and laying her on the grass, he applied his rudimentary knowledge of artificial resuscitation; he saw a gentle heaving of the breast, then picked her up and hurried towards the house.

Mrs Bevengton saw him coming and ran to meet him.

"Whatever is the matter?" she said. She was very pale, but not hysterical. Jack noted her behaviour with approval.

"Bessie fell into the brook, got her head fixed under water for some time; she's breathing alright." He hurried on into the house with her.

The doctor was immediately sent for while Mrs Bevengton administered all she knew, and in half an hour Bessie was sitting up in bed, Jack's bed, drinking hot beef tea. She smiled genially. "I'm sorry to give you all this trouble, Mrs Carstairs," she said.

That evening Jack's sailor uncle paid a surprise visit—his were nearly always surprise visits; he came and went like the sea breeze, fresh, boisterous, and invigorating. As they sat smoking after dinner and commenting on the morning's catastrophe, Commander John Carstairs, R.N., looked across at his nephew and namesake through the smoke.

"You didn't shout?" he asked.

"It didn't occur to me."

"Like to bully through on your own, eh?

"That's it, I suppose."

"You ought to have put that boy in the service, Hugh."

"Er—yes, perhaps so."

"How would you have liked it, Jack?"

"Oh, first-class, I think. However 'what is, is best,' you know, 'the moving finger writes,' etc. I'm going to make money."

The sailor's merry blue eyes became thoughtful, and so, even the casual observer must have been struck by the sense of power the whole man conveyed. The face was clean shaven and of an even pink-red all over, the jaw very strong and square, the cheek bones high and the nose prominent, the mouth a straight line, the eyes deep set and not too close together as deep-set eyes usually are; in repose they looked stern and hard, when he smiled they were the most kindly looking in all the world; his figure, particularly the shoulders and chest, gave one the impression that he swung heavy-weight Indian clubs for many hours each day.

"The service makes men, but not millionaires," he remarked, and his own personality seemed the proof of the assertion.

The Rev. Hugh chimed in. "It's better to be a man than a millionaire."

The sailor smiled again. "Nature has done that for Jack," he said.

Dr Bevengton (who stayed to dinner) broke in. "It's possible to be both, I imagine."

Jack Carstairs puffed slowly at one of his father's cigars. "The line of demarcation between a man and a fool is rather hard to draw, I think."

The sailor laughed uproariously.

The parson's eyes twinkled merrily.

Dr Bevengton seemed more surprised than amused. "How?" he asked.

"Well, I've heard both a man and a fool defined in so very many different ways. One of our Scotch labourers assured me that a man who couldn't take a half tumbler of whisky neat was 'nae man at a'.' Then one frequently hears such terms as 'an ass who plays football,' or 'a fool who reads Shakespeare.'"

The three older men regarded the solemn-faced youngster with much amusement.

"What do you propose to do about it then, Jack?" the sailor asked.

"Please myself," Jack answered.

The sailor slapped his knee. "Well done!" he said. "By Jove, that's good! What about the girl?" he asked, suddenly.

"What girl?"

Commander Carstairs looked towards the ceiling. "Upstairs," he said.

"Oh, she'll be alright, thanks," the doctor answered.

"Be about again soon, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes. To-morrow."

"Then you'll have a chance before you go back, Jack, to prove yourself a man or a fool."

The sailor smiled genially at his nephew, and his nephew regarded him in solemn silence. The doctor coughed, so did the parson.

The sea develops to a remarkable degree the English trait of persistence. Nothing short of a twelve-inch shell would have diverted Jack's uncle from his "chaff."

"In these cases, Jack, there's nothing like striking when the iron's hot," he continued.

The doctor and the parson were distinctly ill at ease, the sailor was happy, the young engineer quite calm. He puffed away slowly at his cigar while the sailor looked laughingly into his eyes.

"I perceive, uncle," Jack said, at length, "that it's possible to be a fool and a man at the same time."

All three men burst into a hearty laugh, the sailor leading.

Next day Bessie was about again, and Jack met her on the lawn. Her dimples were as deep as ever and her hair as rebellious. She held out her hand, "Thanks very much for pulling me out, Jack," she said.

"Oh! it's alright," he answered.

God, in His wisdom, has denied speech to the English, but has specially endowed them with feeling.

They played tennis again and went down and looked at the place where she fell in.

"Did you have a job to get me out?" she asked.

"Oh, fair!" he answered.

So time passed away and the ten days were soon gone. Jack visited all his old haunts and friends and saw a good deal of Bessie. Their relations were changing, they were merging into man and woman, the incident of the brook seemed to have hastened it. Jack saw a difference in her; she seemed a trifle shy at times, and he never failed to notice it. He noticed, too, that she seemed to defer to him more, and not dispute, as they always used to. When he was going away, he said good-bye to her alone, and as he shook hands he noticed a look in her eyes that surprised him. She blushed slightly.

"I'm sorry I'm going back," he said.

"So am I," she answered. She seemed distinctly sad.

One evening, before his uncle had left, they had all spent the evening with the doctor. As the men sat alone smoking, his uncle had questioned Jack about his work. Jack remembered that the doctor had listened with marked interest.

"They call me an Improver," Jack had explained. "Certainly, I've improved lots of things since I've been there, and wrecked others. 'Improver wanted for Central Station in Scotland, must have workshop training and theoretical knowledge, good opportunity to gain a thorough insight into Central Station work. Salary (they called it salary) ten shillings per week.' That's how the advertisement ran. They are correct in describing the insight to be gained as 'thorough.' My first job was to sweep out the engine room and to do it thoroughly, then I had to clean the switchboard, thoroughly too, then, as I had shown my ability, I was allowed to wipe down the engine, thoroughly. Now I stoke boilers and drive engines and operate the switchboard—all for the same pay, while the latest comer sweeps the floor, etc."

The doctor, Jack had noticed, looked considerably down in the mouth. The sailor only laughed. "That'll do you good," he had said.

All these things Jack thought over after he had left Bessie, and the train was speeding him northward.

CHAPTER IV

Back in Scotland, Jack Carstairs took up the thread of his work where he had left off, stepped into the old routine again. He had "started applying," that is to say he carefully scanned the advertisement columns of the Electrical Review, and then in dignified and appropriate language submitted a list of his qualifications to those people (and at this time their name was legion) who required the services of junior station engineers. Nearly all of these were municipalities, and they set out gaudy, lengthily worded advertisements occupying about a quarter of a column, with elaborate specification of duties and qualifications. They finished up with the mild and modest statement that the salary (?) would be at the rate of one pound (or perhaps twenty-five shillings) per week.

Jack answered dozens of these; sometimes he received a little printed slip to inform him that his application had not been successful, which usually arrived by the time he had forgotten all about it, or else he heard nothing whatever. He usually wrote out these applications at the works and posted them on his way home. His route, via the post-box, lay along a road deeply shaded with big beech trees on one side and an open space on the other, the footpath ran along under the trees.

One night, coming off duty at midnight, as he pursued his usual way home, enjoying the deep peace of the night, carrying a bundle of letters in his hands, he felt a sudden, violent blow on the back of the head, and the next thing he knew was that he woke up with a violent headache, and found himself lying on his back, under the shade of one of the big trees. He put his hand to the back of his head and felt a big lump there. He staggered to his feet and searched his pockets; everything was intact, nothing gone or displaced; his letters were lying scattered on the ground; painfully and slowly he gathered them up, the stooping made his head seem about to burst. Then he staggered home to his diggings, posting his letters on the way, and wondering with the vague and painful persistence of the fevered brain who or what had struck him and why.

He let himself into his diggings, and going to his bedroom, carefully sponged his head with water. Then he wiped it dry, sat down and ate his supper, and went to bed.

His sleep was somewhat fevered and disturbed, but he woke up in the morning feeling only a bad headache.

"Damn funny thing," he said to himself, then he turned over and went to sleep again. His landlady knocked at his door and told him it was very late, so he got up and felt fairly fresh.

"You're looking pale, Mr Carstairs," his landlady remarked.

"Yes, I'm feeling a bit pale," he answered.

She looked at him searchingly. Scottish women have an equal curiosity with other women but less tongue; she said nothing, and he volunteered no further information, partly because he was naturally uncommunicative, and partly—well, he could not say why exactly, but he did not.

There are so many things which one does not quite know why one does, which afterwards prove of vast consequence, which is probably why most men who observe and think are superstitious, religious, or fatalistic. The man who can only read plain print does not believe in these things.

Jack Carstairs said nothing, but he went down to the works as usual, and they remarked there that he looked pale and had a lump on the back of his head.

"What's up?" the vociferous young English engineer asked (it is astonishing what a number of English electrical engineers there are in Scotland).

"The sky," Jack answered, laconically.

"Alright! Go to the devil!" the other man answered, and went away.

The bearded, blue-eyed Scotsman looked at him in solemn seeing silence; he said nothing, and his gaze was not obtrusive. The Scotch are a pleasant people to live with because they have grasped, above all others, the art of minding their own business, which possibly also explains why Scotsmen occupy high places all over the world.

Carstairs went back the same way that night again, but he took a handy piece of light, strong iron piping with him. He walked clear of the trees and looked carefully all around, but saw no one.

He walked on and had just reached his diggings when he heard a light step behind him; he turned and saw a tall girl quite close to him.

"Good evening, sir," she said. It was the gipsy girl.

Carstairs face brightened with pleasure and surprise. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

Her eyes seemed to glow as she looked into his. "Following you," she answered.

Suddenly he noticed she carried a substantial ash cudgel. A great wave of wonder passed over him. "Good God, was it you who flattened me out last night?

"No, that was Sam."

His face relaxed with a look of relief. "Were you there, then?"

There was an involuntary twitch of the cudgel in her hand. "He wouldn't have done it if I'd been there."

Carstairs' look showed admiration and appreciation. "That's jolly good of you," he said. "Where are you—er—where is the camp?"

She mentioned a place twenty miles away.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "How did you get here, then?"

"Walked," she answered, simply.

"How'll you get back?"

"Walk," she said, again.

"But you can't walk all night—all that distance." He glanced helplessly up at the window of his little sitting-room.

She followed his glance. "I'll have a sleep out in the fields before I start," she said. She stepped up closer and looked into his eyes.

"Sam's going to 'do' for you." She watched him intently. The grey eyes hardened down till they glinted like steel in the moonlight.

"That's very kind of him," he said.

"But he won't do it," she added. "You'll do for him."

"Perhaps," he admitted, slowly. "I rather hope not. Are you—er—married yet?"

"No! Not going to be."

"Oh!"

"Mother said I needn't, and I don't want to. I'm going to work in a house, a farm," she watched him closely, "not far from here."

With a spontaneous movement he held out his hand. "Good, then I may see you sometimes. Good-bye."

She held up her face expectantly and he kissed her on the lips.

"Good-bye again. You're quite alright now?"

"Yes, sir."

"Dash it! Drop the sir. Can I bring you out some food?"

"No, thank you."

"Well, good-bye. Come over and look me up at the works when you've time, will you?"

"Yes," she answered. She turned and went away. He stood looking after her as she went away down the long moonlit street. He stood at the mouth of the "close" (the common entrance to a number of flats), his latchkey at his lips, whistling softly, in doubt. Suddenly he started off at a run after her. She turned quickly, grasping her cudgel, at the sound of his footsteps.

"Look here, I'll let you into my digs, my rooms, you know, and you can stay there till the morning. I'll stroll around."

"No!" she answered, not aggressively, but quite decisively.

"Alright! I'll stay out with you then, till it's light."

She laughed in real amusement. "I'm going to sleep," she answered.

He looked at her and saw she meant it; doubt again assailed him. "I suppose you're used to it?" he asked.

She laughed aloud. "I've never slept in a bed," she answered.

He laughed too. "I've never slept out of one," he said, "good-bye." He went back again and let himself into his diggings, and went to bed.

Next morning there were two letters waiting for him, both with the city arms of a municipality embossed on the flap of the envelope. "The mayor and corporation, or the City Electrical Engineer regret," he said to himself with a smile as he opened them. In the first, the city electrical engineer of a municipality in the north of England had to inform him that his application for the post of switchboard attendant at a salary of one pound per week had been successful, and would be pleased to know the earliest date on which he could take up his duties.

Carstairs read over the short, concisely worded document a second time. With a little thrill of pleasure he repeated the name of the town to himself. "That's a big job," he said, "and likely to grow." He opened the other letter. Another Borough Electrical Engineer in the Midlands had pleasure in offering him an appointment as switchboard attendant at a salary of one pound per week, and desired that he start as soon as possible.

He smiled over his lonely breakfast table, at the soup plateful of porridge, at the fried bacon and eggs, at the brown bread and the coffee-pot. It was the sort of smile one must share with somebody or something, or burst; for Jack Carstairs was nineteen. He ate his breakfast with much zest, but before it was over he got up and fished out directories and lists of Central Stations from a pile of books and papers in a cupboard; with these spread out on the table before him, or propped up against the sugar basin, he took intermittent mouthfuls of food while he carefully scanned the lists. Then having found both the towns and noted the capacity and peculiarity of their plant, the population, etc., he gave his whole attention to his plate, thinking deeply as he ate. "Not much to choose between them," he said to himself.

Then he went out for a walk and walked along, deep in thought. "I think," he said to himself, at the end of his stroll, "I think Muddleton (the town in the Midlands) will be the better experience."

He went down to the works to see his chief and find out if he could get away earlier than his legal agreement allowed him to. Then he went back to his digs and wrote accepting one and refusing the other.

In after life he often wondered what would have happened had he chosen the other. This seeming free choice, is it really free, and if so, how far?

Next day he hired a bicycle (he did not own one, could not afford the time to use it and look after it, he said) and cycled over to the place where the gipsy girl had told him their camp was pitched. He tried every road that led out of the little Scotch village, but could find nothing of the camp. He made inquiries, and the dour highland policeman looked at him with open suspicion.

"Gipsy camp," he repeated, "na, there's nae gipsy camp around here."

So Carstairs went back the way he had come, and in a week was in the train for England. He was hurried out of Scotland, over the moorlands and southwards through the wilderness of little towns that cluster, thick as blackberries (and about the same hue), all about the heart of England. At four o'clock in the morning, he was turned out, bag and baggage, in a great industrial centre, on the middle platform of a vast and gloomy station. By eight o'clock a.m. he had reached his destination.

He got out at the dirty little station with somewhat of the edge taken off his enthusiasm. Leaving his luggage in the cloak-room, he went out and wandered round the town, looking at the smoke stacks and the factories, the squalor and the dirt.

He located the works in the lowest and dirtiest part of the town, and next to the gas-works, as usual. The extent of the buildings and the two towering chimney stacks acted like a tonic on his somewhat jaded spirits. At ten o'clock he went round again and interviewed his new chief, a tall clean-shaven young man of twenty-six, who drew a modest salary of £400 per annum; he was very affable and pleasant, but not in the least impressed by the gravity of the situation.

"Oh, yes! you're the new switchboard attendant. Have you had a look round? No? Oh, go out and stroll round the works, then. Mr Thomson will be in shortly."

Carstairs went out into the engine room and wandered in and out amongst the big engines, till another very young man, in his shirt sleeves, came up and asked him what he wanted.

Carstairs explained.

The young man smiled a pleasant smile, and held out his hand. "I'm the Shift Engineer. My name is Smith. Come on upstairs." He took Carstairs up the switchboard steps, along the gallery, and into a big room at the end. It was very light, with large windows and glass doors, and numerous lights, all burning. Five other young men, very young (the eldest of them not over twenty-two), were lounging around on tables and chairs. All had their coats off, and some their collars as well. One had a piece of flexible wood with a large piece of cardboard fastened across the end; with this instrument he gravely hunted flies, squashing them flat on walls or window panes, remarking "exit," in a mechanical sort of voice at every stroke. A long sloping-topped drawing table occupied the whole length of the room under the windows, another large drawing board was supported on light trestles in another part, an ordinary writing table occupied the centre. Instruments, paper, pencils, ink, technical journals, and pocket books, were scattered about broadcast.

Seated on the table in the middle, idly swinging his legs, a young man was telling a story; all the others, except the fly hunter, listened attentively. He was tall and dark, with a small neat moustache and marvellous large brown eyes.

The Shift Engineer introduced them. "Darwen, this is Carstairs, the new switchboard attendant."

The dark young man reached out a hand—a strong, sinewy hand, with long, taper, artistic fingers; he smiled, such a genial, winning smile, that Carstairs felt friendly towards him at once.

The Shift Engineer continued the introduction with a light wave of the arm. "Green, Brown, Jones, Robinson." Then he perched himself on the table. "Go on with the yarn, Darwen," he said.

The dark man smiled, and Carstairs noted the remarkable perfection of his face; the forehead was broad and not too high; the nose strong but delicately chiselled; the chin, well moulded and firm but not aggressively prominent; the mouth was almost perfect. The whole man presented a striking picture: the head was perfectly shaped, and the figure gave every indication of great strength and activity; the deltoid muscles at the angle of the shoulder showed very prominently, the neck was big and firm. The pectoral muscles were clearly defined under the tight-fitting waistcoat, the leg, bent over the table, showed a well-developed thigh and knee.

Carstairs eyed him with pleasure, he had a keen appreciation of a well-built man. Darwen's brown eyes seemed continually to meet Carstairs' steady grey ones, and always there was the light of pleasure in them. He went on with his tale, and the others listened and laughed at the right place, which was the end. Carstairs smiled a solemn sort of smile, The story did not appeal to him very much.

Darwen caught the smile, and his own eye seemed to kindle with an appreciation, though it was his story. "What shift are you on?" he asked.

"I don't know yet. I've got to see Mr Thompson."

"He'll be in now, I expect." With a sudden spring he threw himself off the table and went to the glass door. "There he is, down in the engine room now," he said.

Carstairs went out and perceived another very young man talking to an engine fitter down below. At that time Central Stations were very young and most of the staffs were very young also. When municipalities were putting up electric lighting stations faster than men were being trained to fill them, young men passed quickly from charge engineer to chief engineer, and from that to bigger chiefs. All sorts and conditions of men drifted into station work. Now they are drifting out again; sick of councillors and contractors; sick of mayors and corporations; sick of red tape and Bumbledom; sick of life.

Mr Thompson was smartly, rather horsily dressed. He eyed Carstairs over somewhat in the manner of a horse fancier. He let it be evident also that he was satisfied.

"Have you been round yet?" he asked.

"No, not all round," Carstairs answered.

"Alright, come round with me."

"Thanks," Carstairs said. Thompson, he thought, was probably only about three or four years older than himself, and he looked less. They walked round together, Thompson explaining and pointing out peculiarities, Carstairs listening and asking questions. In ten minutes they were as chummy as school boys.

"Have you got digs?" Thompson asked, suddenly, pulling out his watch.

"No, not yet."

"Well, look here, you'll be on the day shift this week; you can go out now and get fixed. Some of the other fellows will perhaps be able to give you some addresses."

"Thanks, I'll try." Carstairs went up to the drawing office again. "I say, can any one put me up to some digs?"

Darwen was leaning over a drawing board doing some fine work, whistling softly to himself. "I can," he said. "Half a minute." He put in one or two more strokes, then he looked up. "I've got pretty decent digs; there's another bedroom empty in the house I know. You can share the sitting room with me, if you like."

"Right you are! What's your address, and how do I get there? I'll go round and fix it up at once. Thompson said I could."

CHAPTER V

Carstairs and Darwen were on the same shift together, that is to say, they put in the same eight hours of the day at the works, day, evening, or night; and they shared diggings. They were about the same height and the same weight, they were both extremely interested in their work, both came from the south of England, and consequently both felt like strangers in a strange land. The first evening they were off, Darwen showed Carstairs round the town.

"That's the theatre," he said, with a smile, pointing to a dingy-looking building in a dingy-looking street. He watched Carstairs' face curiously as he spoke.

"I thought it was the prison," Carstairs answered, with his sober smile.

Darwen laughed outright. "This is the last place God made," he said.

They walked round the dingy main streets with their surging crowd of factory girls and factory men, flashily dressed in their evening attire, of poor physique and unhealthy looking.

"Is it possible," Carstairs asked, "to get out into the country?"

"Oh, yes!" Darwen answered. "Can you walk?"

"Pretty fair."

"Come on then. I'll show you a field."

Carstairs looked pained. "The landlady," he remarked, "described that acre or so of bare earth opposite our window, as a field."

"I know, but this is a real field with grass and all that."

"Come on then," Carstairs said, briskly.

Darwen stopped and looked at him impressively. "Mind, I promise nothing! But last time I was there, there were three cows in it." He suddenly relaxed into a sunny smile. "Come on," he said, and started off briskly.

They walked about five miles, past endless rows of symmetrical, dingy, box-like, red brick houses. It was getting dark when they reached the field, but the cows were there—three sorry specimens, grazing on the smoke-grimed, subdued-looking grass. The young engineers sat on the gate and looked at them in amused pity.

"We've come through one town, and we're on the borders of another," Darwen remarked. "It's hard to say just what town you're in at any given moment, about here."

"It seems very bracing although it's so smoky," Carstairs said. "I wonder why any one lives here who could live anywhere else."

"Lord! Don't tell 'em that. I nearly got mobbed for making a similar remark last week. They think these places are very fine towns. When they've made their pile they still stay here."

"How long have you been here?"

"A month."

"How long are you going to stay?"

"Oh, I shall start applying when I've put in four months. Might get away at the end of six, then."

"That's my idea, too. They've got some good plant here, though."

So they lapsed into technicalities; and as they strolled back, the dingy houses and the smoke and grime were all forgotten. Community of interest was drawing these two young men very close together. They sat up late into the night smoking and comparing notes of what they had seen and wished to see in the engineering world. As they went to bed, Carstairs passed Darwen's door.

"Oh! if you come in half a minute, I'll show you those drawings," he said.

He went in, and while Darwen rummaged about in a big trunk, Carstairs glanced round his bedroom. The walls were hung with framed photographs of football teams and cricket teams, school teams and town teams; Darwen's handsome features and sturdy limbs were prominent in all. Carstairs examined them with keen interest. "You're a rugger man, I see," he said, with great appreciation.

"Yes, are you?"

"Oh, yes. I play, but I haven't got an international cap, or—" Carstairs mentioned the name of one of the teams on the wall. Darwen stood up with a roll of engineering drawings in his hand. He flushed slightly with pleasure. "I only played for them one season," he explained, "left the town at the end of it."

Carstairs looked at the drawings and Darwen explained. They sat down together side by side on the bed; for half an hour longer they discussed technicalities, then Carstairs went out. He noticed two photographs on the mantelpiece as he passed, both of girls, both pretty. He noticed also that both of them were autographed across the corner. One of them he thought had "with love" written on it too. "Shouldn't have thought Darwen was the sort of ass to get engaged," he said to himself as he went into his own room and glanced round at the landlady's wishy-washy prints and cheap ornaments.

At the works Carstairs and Darwen were always on together, with Smith as charge engineer. On the night shift (that is, from midnight to eight in the morning), Smith spent most of his time in the drawing office reading novels or newspapers, and sleeping; he took periodical walks round to see that the others were awake, then he went back into the drawing office and reclined peacefully in a chair, his head thrown back against the wall (cushioned by a folded coat), and his feet supported by a small box. During the first two or three hours the two juniors spent their time tracing out connections behind the switchboard, making diagrams, and clambering about on the tops of engines or boilers; later on, they too, usually dozed off, sprawling over the switchboard desk, or stretched out on the floor somewhere out of sight. After about two o'clock a.m. the whole works, in fact, became a sort of temporary palace of sleep; the stoker dozed on his box in the boiler house, the engine driver made himself snug on the bed plate of an engine, the fires in the boilers died gradually down from a fierce white to a dull red glow, the steam pressure gauge dropped back twenty or thirty pounds, the engines hummed away merrily, with a rather soothing sort of buzz from the alternator, and a mild sort of grinding noise from the direct current dynamos, with a little intermittent sparking at the brushes. On the switchboard, the needles of all the instruments remained steady, the pressure showing perhaps a little drop. At irregular intervals the driver would get up and slowly oil round his engines, feeling the bearings at the same time; the stoker would arise and throw a few shovelfuls of coal on his fires, glance up at his water gauges and regulate the feed water, perhaps putting the pump on a little faster, or stopping it off a bit; a switchboard attendant would open one eye and glance sleepily at the big voltmeter swung on an arm at the end of the switchboard, note that the pressure was only a little way back, and close his eyes again in quiet unconcern.

One night Smith had been drinking a lot of strong tea and couldn't sleep; he strolled round at an unaccustomed hour and surveyed the sleeping beauties with a little smile of glee, for Smith was twenty-three years old, and to the healthy young man at that age many things appear humorous which a few years later take on a hue of tragedy.

Going through the boiler house, he carefully examined the steam and water gauges. Then he stood for some moments gazing interestedly at the recumbent stoker; he was rather a ferocious-looking man in ordinary wakeful moments, but thus, with his big jaw dropped to its full extent, his eyes closed, and every feature relaxed, he seemed singularly feeble. Smith took a shovel and threw it with a clatter down on the iron checker plates.

It was quite an appreciable number of seconds before the man moved, then he sprang bolt upright, with his eyes wide open, both arms extended above his head, and every expression of alarm on his countenance; he saw Smith standing there smiling, but it was some moments before his face resumed its normal expression; he looked at the shovel on the iron plates. "Did you drop that, sir?" he asked.

"Yes," Smith answered.

"I must a' dropped off," the man said, half apologetically, half humorously.

"I think you must have," Smith agreed, smiling broadly.

A joke loses more than half its zest if there's no one to share it with. "I'll have those chaps in the engine room now. Come in and see," Smith said, as he led the way to the engine room door. The heavy stoker followed; he was a man over forty, but he grinned like a boy of twelve.

"Half a minute," the engineer said, in a whisper. Leaving the expectant stoker at the door, he carefully surveyed the engine room and switchboard, then he returned with an oil bucket in his hand. "Shut the door, and when I switch the lights out, rattle that like blazes." He handed over the bucket and crossed the engine room again to the station-lighting switchboard, picking up two more buckets as he went. Then he switched off the main switch, putting the place in inky darkness; instantly the stoker rattled his bucket with great vigour. Smith bowled one of his along the iron checker plates on top of the pipe trench, and rattled the other vigorously in his hands.

From the security of their corners they heard voices shouting in the darkness, and the sounds of men in anger swearing.

"What the hell's up?"

"Stand by your engine, Jones!"

"Got a match? Let's have a look at the blooming volts."

Smith heard a bump above his head on the switchboard gallery as though some one had fallen, a match was struck down in the engine room and another on the switchboard, then he heard Darwen's voice say, "Good God! Smith! Hullo! Smith!"

He switched on the lights and ran up the switchboard steps.

Carstairs was lying limp and helpless on his back with Darwen bending over him. Smith turned as white as a ghost.

"What's up?" he asked, in an agitated voice.

"I don't know. Got a shock, I think. Look at his hands, got across the contacts in the dark somehow."

They stretched him out on his back with a folded coat underneath him, and put him through the motions for artificial respiration. The driver and stoker waived ceremony and mounted the switchboard steps to see what was wrong; they stood leaning over the prostrate form watching the anxious efforts of Smith and Darwen in silent, interested sympathy. "Shall I have a spell, sir?" the brawny stoker asked, as the agitated Smith paused for a moment in his efforts.

No one present was ever able to say precisely how long they worked at Carstairs, probably not many minutes before his chest began to heave in a natural breathing motion. They carried him out into the yard, and the fresh air so revived him that in half an hour he walked through the engine room unaided, and lay down on the floor of the drawing office, made comfortable with coats and newspapers, and dozed off into a sleep. When he woke up, and had had a wash, he seemed quite normal again.

Smith was profuse in his apologies. "I'm beastly sorry. I never dreamt of anything of that sort, etc."

"Oh, it's alright," Carstairs answered, with a sincere desire to let the matter drop. "I ought to have stood still, went shoving my hands out, knew I was somewhere near the machine switch, too. Got right past the guards and touched the bare metal first go off, wouldn't happen once in a thousand times. Not your fault at all."

So the incident passed, and remained a secret in the bosoms of those five men till years later, when, Carstairs and Darwen were dim and distant memories at those works, a driver or a stoker would sometimes tell wondering pupils a tale of how a man was nearly killed on the night run through the Shift Engineer "skylarking."

Things went very smoothly for a bit. Darwen and Carstairs got more chummy than ever. They were leaning over the switchboard rail together, it was not quite a week since Carstairs had got the shock. "I rather wanted to see a chap get a shock, not killed, you know," Darwen was saying.

"I was rather curious on the point myself, too."

"What was it like? Just a two hundred shock magnified?"

"Very much magnified. It was devilish."

They drifted off. "I've never seen an alternator burn out yet, have you?"

"No! Wish number three would go now."

They separated to take reading; it was half-past nine in the evening; Carstairs stood looking at an ammeter which was set some way above his head. The divisions on the scale were small and indistinctly figured; Carstairs stood very close in, on tip-toe, straining his neck upwards; the high tension fuses were at the bottom of the board, about level with his knees (carefully calculated as the most awkward possible position), they were seven inches long and enclosed in porcelain pots, which invariably shattered when a fuse blew. As Carstairs stood there taking feeder reading, with what he afterwards learnt was unnecessary accuracy, the needle of the instrument he was looking at gave a sudden violent plunge, the fuse pot, almost touching his trousers, was shattered into a hundred pieces with a report like a miniature cannon, and a vivid arc blazed away under his eyes with a rattling, screaming roar. Carstairs jumped back in an instant, to the furthest limit that the width of the gallery would allow.

Darwen came along from the low tension switchboard; he was all eagerness, his eyes were bright. He stopped and looked at his new friend in amazement. Carstairs cowered against the handrail, gripping his scribbling block and pencil, palpitating, useless.

For two or three seconds Darwen gazed at him in astonishment. Then he fetched the long, insulated crook kept for that purpose, and himself pulled out the feeder switch.

"Bring down your volts, Carstairs," he said, in a kindly, soothing voice, avoiding his eyes.

With a deep, gasping sigh Carstairs pulled himself together, and with an unsteady hand adjusted the rheostat.

They looked down into the engine room and saw Thompson, the chief assistant, looking up, watching them. He came up the steps and looked at the shattered fuse pot and burnt slate; he expressed no surprise, nor even anger; in those early days sparks and blinding flashes were the daily fare of the electrical engineer, very much more than they are now. Thompson picked up one or two of the pieces of partially fused porcelain and examined them with interest, then he glanced at Carstairs with a great wonder in his eyes, but he spoke to Darwen.

That night, as they walked home together, Carstairs was more than usually silent, and the remarks of Darwen were choppy and abrupt. They ate their supper almost in silence, then they lit their pipes and smoked, in easy chairs, one on each side of the fireplace. They puffed in silence for some time, then Carstairs spoke.

"I'm going to start applying," he said.

"Why? You haven't been here three months yet!"

"No! Quite so! But I'm going to look out for a nice, quiet little job in the country with two low tension machines, where the wheels are very small, and fuses never blow."

"My dear chap, you'll get over that; the first one I saw go knocked me all in a heap."

Carstairs appreciated Darwen's sympathetic lying, but it cut him more than all. "Don't give me silly lies, for God's sake," he said, letting his temper get the better of him. "I have found out that I am a skunk with no nerve, not a ha'porth, so I drop behind, into my place, the place of the cur. And the bottom is knocked out of my universe." He puffed vigorously at his pipe, blowing great clouds of smoke.

Darwen was silent, too, for some time, then he spoke slowly, thoughtfully, punctuating his remarks by blowing softly at the wreaths of smoke about him. "I must say (puff), honestly (puff), I was never more surprised in my life (puff). You're such a deliberate, cool sort of chap (puff). Thought earthquakes wouldn't upset you."

"Damn it! I thought so too."

Darwen proceeded: "Surely must be something abnormal (puff). I mean to say, a fuse going is startling, and all that—but (puff), damn it! (puff) you haven't got over that shock, you know, that's what it is." He sat upright with a sudden vigour and a light in his expressive eyes. "That's it, man. You want to go slow for a bit. Dash it! two thousand volts, that usually 'corpses' a chap, you know."

Carstairs brightened somewhat. "Yes," he said, "I'm convinced that's it, too, but how long will it take to get over it? If ever?" He stood up excitedly; it was obvious he was not himself even then. His hand was unsteady as he held his pipe outwards, pointing with the stem at Darwen. "That shock was devilish, Darwen. A nightmare. Devilish. I could feel you chaps working at me, for hours it seemed to me, working so damn slowly. And I wanted to tell you to get on, to keep it up, to go faster, and I couldn't, couldn't budge, couldn't get out a word. Did I sweat? You didn't notice if I sweated. Think I must have. There was a sensation of something fluttering round me, something like a damn great moth in the dark. I could hear it, and I was frightened of the thing, frightened as hell. I wanted to put my arm up to shield my eyes, to beat the thing off, to lash out in sheer terror, and I couldn't budge. God! It was awful! I had no idea terror was so really terrible. Wonder what the moth thing was?"

Darwen looked at him steadily with bright eyes, a world of sympathy in them, sympathy and interest. "Your face was very drawn, I noticed that. You looked terror-stricken."

"I was. And when that fuse went to-night, the bang and the flash and roar brought it all back. I lost control of myself. I wanted to be steady, but I couldn't, I shook like a leaf; you saw it, and Thompson saw it. You'd hardly believe how angry I was, how I was cursing myself." He broke off suddenly and shook his clenched fist in the air. "Curse that blasted silly Smith and his blasted monkey tricks." It was almost a scream.

"Sit down, old chap. You want a rest, that's what it is—shock to the system and that sort of thing, you know. I'll go round with you in the morning and see a doctor."

Carstairs sat down, he seemed almost himself again; calm, discerning, calculating. "Can't do that! What am I to say? Sure to get old Smith into a row. These bally doctors and councillors they're all mixed up, you know, sure to get round."

"My dear chap, damn Smith! You have yourself to consider."

"He'd get the sack; it would wreck him. His people are not very well off; he told me once that before he came here he was getting a quid a week in London—and living on it."

Darwen spread out his hands with an almost continental gesture. "My dear chap, you're following quite an erroneous line of reasoning, it's rather a pet theory of mine, as an engineer. However, tell the doctor you had an accident in the execution of your duty, etc., etc. No need for it to get round at all. He'll forget all about you as soon as you've paid him his fee."

Carstairs was thoughtful, he puffed his pipe in silence for some minutes, then he stood up. "Alright, let's go to two while we're about it, then we can check 'em one on the other. I'm going to bed."

CHAPTER VI

In the morning Carstairs and Darwen went together to first one doctor and then another. Their verdicts were remarkably alike. "Shock! you'll feel the effects for some time. You really want a month's rest."

"Shall I get alright again in a month?" Carstairs asked.

"Probably, most probably."

"What are you going to do?" Darwen asked when they got outside. "Ask for a month?"

"No!" Carstairs answered, definitely. "Smith's the sort of chap who'd own up at once if the subject were brought up; I'll sit it out, now I know it's only temporary, I don't mind. The thought of it otherwise fairly took the stuffing out of me."

Darwen reasoned with him. "My dear chap, you fly in the face of providence all the way round. As an engineer you should have learnt to pursue truth relentlessly."

"That is my desire," Carstairs grunted.

"Well, the elementary truth underlying all things is that a man's first duty is to himself. When you introduce sentimental side issues, you overload yourself and consequently shorten the run of your existence. You also render it less pleasant."

"What are my sentimental side issues? I'm not engaged on anything of that sort." Carstairs shot a quick glance at Darwen.

He was quite unmoved. "Your idea about screening Smith, etc. The fool must pay the penalty of his folly. Smith is a fool. In the great scheme of the Universe all things are interdependent. Naturalists say that if there had been no worms there would be no men, and an engineer is a man who uses this interdependence to his own advantage."

Carstairs gave a grudging assent. "Where is the limit?" he asked.

"I see no limit," Darwen answered.

"Then you're a common or garden rogue."

"Perhaps! Rogue is so often simply a term applied by fools to men smarter than themselves. However, I said, 'I see no limit'; I should add 'as yet.' My theory is incomplete, I am expanding it as I grow older."

"You'll expand yourself into prison if you don't look out."

Darwen laughed. "Have you read 'The Prince'?" he asked.

"No."

"You're an ignorant chap, Carstairs. I'll lend it to you."

"Thanks. What's it about, engines?"

"No—men."

"Then I won't borrow it, thanks all the same."

"It's part of my theory that every man should be a sort of little Prince, as far as his intellect, etc., will allow him."

"Hear, hear! Go on."

"Well, the essential part of a prince's job is handling men."

"So is an engineer's."

"Hear! hear! to that. Now our views begin to converge. The engineer is essentially analytical and mathematical. Why not apply his abilities to men as well as engines, eh?"

"No reason at all."

"Good! then as in engineering it is necessary not only to have theory, but practice as well, practise, practise, practise, eh? We will experiment so that we may know the limit of the truth of our theories, so that we may know and recognize the little difficulties that crop up in the application of all theories. On the night shift next week we'll experiment on Smith and Jones and Foulkes."

The following week as they were preparing to go on night shift together, Carstairs noticed that the landlady put up a bag of large onions for Darwen. "What in thunder are those things for?" he asked.

"The experiment. We'll see if we can persuade those other chaps to eat raw onions. I believe you can make most men do anything if you have observed them closely and drawn accurate deduction from your observations. Now Foulkes, the stoker, is a strong, hard-headed sort of chap, but he's immensely impressed with his own hardihood. We'll attack him on that side. Twig?"

"I think a sledge-hammer would be a more appropriate weapon to tackle old Foulkes with."

"That's the good old masculine idea. In these things you want to take a line from the feminine."

"Alright. I'll be a spectator."

So shortly after midnight Carstairs and Darwen repaired to the boiler house.

"Hullo, Foulkes," Darwen said, cheerily. "How did you sleep to-day?"

Foulkes was gruff and hearty. "I can sleep any time," he said.

"Lucky dog! wish I could. My landlady recommended me to eat onions. Jolly good things, but they burn my mouth out."

Foulkes laughed, a great guffaw.

Darwen laughed too. "I suppose," he said, "that they don't have any effect on you. I daresay you could eat 'em like apples." He pulled an onion from his pocket and threw it up and caught it. "I've heard of chaps with very strong heads being able to do it," he remarked, gazing at the onion in his hand tentatively. "I couldn't tackle 'em like that. No more could you, Foulkes."

Foulkes stretched out a big, black paw. "Give me ta onion," he said.

Darwen handed it over. "I bet you'll soon chuck it."

They stood and watched. Carstairs very solemn, Darwen with just a flicker of a smile of satisfaction, as the big stoker ate the best part of a raw onion till the tears ran down his cheeks and he almost gasped for breath. Darwen kept him at it. "That's beaten you, Foulkes, you can't go on with it." But he did, and finished it.

As they turned to the engine room Darwen said: "How's that for an experiment."

"I call it underhand, unsporting."

"My dear chap, you don't give sporting chances to an engine." He looked at Carstairs curiously. "We have different methods of looking at things; I wonder who will prove most successful in the end."

"Your experiment would have failed any way if Foulkes hadn't been a plucky, obstinate sort of chap."

"Exactly. That goes to prove the correctness of my observations. I had placed Foulkes rightly as the man to eat onions. That is to say, to eat an entire onion. The successful man is the man who can make others eat onions, and also pair up the right man with the right onion. I have an ambition to be a successful man."

"So have I, but I also wish to play the game."

"Again we disagree, I wish to collar the stakes."

Carstairs was silent for some time. "Let us agree to differ. You don't mean all you say, or all that your words convey to me. You're a sportsman."

"That's true. I'm somewhat hampered by a sporting instinct, and if I followed my theory to its logical conclusion, I should not now be reasoning with you."

They sat down on the switchboard and glanced over the technical papers that were just out that day.

Two months passed away and Carstairs found to his very great pleasure that his nerves had regained their normal steadiness. He and Darwen were both scanning the advertisement columns of the technical press with great anxiety and interest; they were both answering advertisements, and they had come to an agreement not to both apply for the same job. They were watching with eager interest a town in the south of England. They had both seen tenders out for plant about a year ago; then they saw an advertisement for a chief engineer.

"In about a month he'll want shifts," Carstairs said.

Now the advertisement was before them, set out with much pomp and ceremony among a long list of other stuff. Three shift engineers at a salary of £104 per annum.

Carstairs felt a singular sense of satisfaction as he surveyed the advertisement. "We'll toss for first choice as usual, I suppose," he said.

"Of course," Darwen answered. "They'll never select two chaps from one station, and I'm certain it reduces the chances of both." He threw a coin in the air.

"Tails," Carstairs said.

Darwen turned it up. "Tails" it was. "There you are," he said, with a genial smile, pocketing the coin.

Carstairs wrote out his application, and copied his testimonials with great care on unruled foolscap. About a fortnight later, Thompson, the chief assistant, called him into his office.

He picked up a letter from his desk. "I've got a letter from Southville in reference to your application for Shift Engineer. The chief there asks my recommendation between you and Darwen."

"Darwen?" Carstairs repeated in astonishment.

Thompson glanced at the letter. "Yes, Darwen," he said. He hummed and hesitated a minute, while Carstairs was turning over various thoughts and reasons in his mind. "You see it's a new job, Carstairs. I have a very high opinion of your abilities. The testing and that, that we have done together, but—er—things are always going wrong in a new job, you know. I think it will be better for you if you stay here till you get more accustomed to fuses, etc., going."

Carstairs flushed; from his neck to the roots of his hair he was a vivid red. Thompson looked down at the letter he held in his hands.

"Then you're recommending Darwen?" Carstairs asked.

"Ye-es, I think, for a new job, you understand. Darwen would be rather more suitable. I tell you this because I thought probably Darwen would tell you, and you might misinterpret my action."

Thompson was a sportsman, he liked to have things square and aboveboard.

"Thanks! I understand," Carstairs said, and went out. He crossed the engine room and looked for Darwen.

"So you're putting your theory into practice," he said, looking Darwen sternly in the eyes.

"What do you mean?" he asked, flushing angrily, and Carstairs couldn't help thinking what a remarkably handsome fellow he was.

"Why, you've got Southville."

"Yes, I know. Thompson told me just now. What about it?"

"You're a damn skunk, that's all. I won the toss."

"You're a liar or a fool, and I'll punch your head if you call me a skunk."

Carstairs looked at him in astonishment, his anger seemed so genuine and righteous. "You're welcome to try any time you like," he answered.

Darwen gazed at him a moment, then he suddenly smiled. "Look here, old chap, I can see you believe you're in the right, but I assure you you're not. I'm positive I won the toss."

"And I'm equally positive I won it."

"My dear chap, I held the coin right under your eyes, and I remember distinctly it was a tail."

"Precisely; that's what I guessed."

Darwen's face seemed to lighten with a sudden comprehension. "I'm devilish sorry," he said. "I remember now. I didn't notice particularly at the time what you said. I was watching the coin. "Head" is so often the choice that I assumed it was head. Look here, I'll withdraw my application. I'll tell Thompson." He started off.

Carstairs followed, and stopped him at the office. "Let it go now, Darwen," he said.

Thompson looked from one to the other inquiringly. Darwen explained.

"It's too late now, any way," Thompson said. "The letter's gone. I think it's best as it is, too."

They went out into the engine room again together. Darwen was profuse, more than profuse, in his apologies. "I'd sooner almost anything had happened than this," he said.

Carstairs watched him closely. "Oh, it doesn't matter. Let's drop it," he said.

In a week Darwen left for Southville. They parted excellent friends, almost the same as before the unpleasant incident, but not quite. There was a "something."

The new man who came to fill Darwen's place was very bumptious and very conceited, the son of a large shopkeeper. He would have been a decent fellow if he had not been so conceited. For his first time on night shift he was as lively as a cricket for the first two hours, singing and whistling and trying to startle the stoker and driver by dropping heavy spanners on the checker plates unawares, etc.; then he announced loudly that he'd "keep the beggars awake."

At three o'clock Smith found him tilted back in his chair, mouth wide open, fast asleep. Smith's eyes sparkled, he gently called Carstairs; they both repaired to the drawing office and came back with bottles of ink of various colours—red, green, black, and purple—and two fine camel-hair brushes: delicately and with great care they painted his face with streaks and circles and elaborate scrolls of many colours; every now and again during the process the sleeper raised a hand to brush away the flies. He turned his head uneasily occasionally too, but they finished it in style, and stood back to regard their masterpiece with keen satisfaction; he looked a most fearsome warrior. Then they stood back and dropped a heavy book with a bang on the floor. He jumped up startled, but saw them laughing.

"I wasn't asleep," he said, with a self-satisfied pomposity.

"Pretty nearly, though," Smith suggested.

"Oh no, I wasn't. I bet you don't catch me asleep."

Smith smiled. "Alright, don't get your hair off," he said; he strolled towards the steps, Carstairs followed, and the new man dropped in behind. They strolled across the engine room in solemn procession, and the engine driver, catching sight of the new man's face, went off into shrieks of hysterical laughter. Smith and Carstairs took no notice, but the new man hurried up alongside, frowning severely, which added exceedingly to the comic effect of his countenance.

"That chap's mad, I think," he said.

The other two turned and looked at the driver with a sort of tolerant good humour. "He is a bit touched, I think," Smith observed. "He's been in India for a long time—in the army, you know."

"Cheeky brute, he broke out like that when he saw me. I'll ask him what the hell he's laughing at if he doesn't shut up."

"Never mind him," they said, "he can't help it, he'll be alright in a minute." They went out into the boiler house and the new man followed; the stoker was asleep on his box against the wall; they paused, all three, and stood looking at him.

"They are a drowsy lot, these chaps," the new man remarked. "See me wake him up." He picked up a heavy firing iron, and, standing in front of the stoker, dropped it on the iron plates with a huge clatter.

The stoker—he had been in a very light doze—jumped up instantly and stood fronting the new man, face to face, directly under a lamp; for fully half a minute he stared, in speechless, motionless, wonder, then he burst forth into mighty guffaws that shook the very building. He caught sight of the others standing a few yards off.

"Strike me pink! Take 'im away. Take 'im away," he moaned in piteous appeal, squirming painfully with his hand on his stomach.

The new man stared at him in petrified rage and astonishment. "What the hell is the matter with you?" he asked. "You were asleep," he said, severely, "and it's no use trying to pass it off by laughing."

"Oh, go away, go away." The stoker motioned with brawny hand and averted face. He took a sideways glance out of one eye, and burst forth into fresh paroxysms.

Smith and Carstairs retired somewhat precipitately into the yard, and under the friendly shade of night, behind a big cable drum, they screamed in unison.

The new man after vainly endeavouring to quell the stoker with a frown, went back to the engine room again; as he opened the door the driver, who was just mopping his eyes with a red cotton handkerchief, caught sight of him and burst forth anew.

Smitten with a sudden suspicion, the new man glanced hastily over his clothing and passed his handkerchief over his face, but the ink was quite dry and gave no evidence.

"Everybody in this place seems to be mad to-night," he said, and the driver screamed louder.

With increased suspicion, the new man went off to the lavatory and looked in the glass. What he said is not known, but later, when Smith and Carstairs returned to the drawing office, they found him with a clean face. He didn't look up when they entered, but continued to read in moody silence. They sat down and read too, while the stoker and driver at the door of the engine room conferred notes with much laughter.

Not very long after the stoker appeared at the glass door of the drawing office. He knocked and came inside; his face was pale beneath its grime, and his eyes were full of apprehension, which he endeavoured not to show.

"Low water in number five boiler, sir," he said.

All three were on their feet in an instant.

Probably eighty per cent. of boiler explosions are due to low water. Smith's merry, boyish face grew pale and stern, as he moved quickly to the door. "How the devil is that?" he asked.

"Dunno, sir. Check valve hung up, I think."

"Have you lost sight of it altogether?"

"Yes, sir." The gruff, hearty man was very meek.

They arrived at the boiler house, all four. Smith looked at the water gauge glasses and blew them through.

"How long have you lost it?"

"Only just noticed it, sir."

Smith stood for a moment, his hand on the check valve, his eyes far away. The weight of responsibility comes early on these young men, especially if they have a tendency to skylarking and letting things drift occasionally; as a rule they look old beyond their years.

Only for a moment Smith hesitated.

"Damp your fires! Get some of those wet ashes and cover them over! Let the stream drop and shut this one in as soon as it's back twenty pounds!" He stood in front of the boiler and watched the stoker throw ashes on the fires; he looked a different man; he was very steady and calm. This young man with the vulgar name of Smith had some excellent British blood in his veins, as who shall say in England here, that any navvy in the street has not?

Carstairs stood behind him, his heart beating considerably faster; only the day before he had been reading a detailed account of a disastrous boiler explosion. He felt a tingling, pricking sensation in his blood; afterwards he learnt to look for this tingling of the blood, it was one of his chief sources of enjoyment.

The big stoker watched Smith very intently with a sort of child-like dependent observation. He obeyed his instructions quietly but quickly, very quickly. He was very silent, and very meek, but there was a tinge almost of fever in his movements.

The new man watched them for a moment, then with every assumption of languor he strolled off—and he did not come back till the boiler was shut in and the pressure very low.

When, after about half an hour, everything seemed safe again, Smith gave a sigh of relief as he and Carstairs returned to the engine room. "I don't mind sparks, but I'm darned if I like steam," he said. He looked at Carstairs with approval. "You didn't seem to be very much impressed."

Carstairs smiled, his slow, steady smile. "As a matter of fact, I felt like a chap who's found a bomb and doesn't quite know whether it's exploded or about to explode, or whether it really is a bomb."

That night as Carstairs went home his ambitions began to soar very high again.

CHAPTER VII

At the end of a month Darwen wrote a rather long letter, giving a detailed description of the station and staff. "The plant is good," he wrote, "all brand new and full of possibilities. The chief assistant is a delightful thickhead, and the chief—words fail me to describe him. The possibilities and probabilities of this job are immense."

Carstairs read it through twice carefully and thoughtfully; he penned a brief reply. "No news here. New man an utter ass, blown out with conceit, impossible to share digs with him." That was about all, it was almost telegraphic.

At the works things went on much as usual. Thompson made more than usual overtures of friendliness; he wished to impress on Carstairs that it was through no feeling of personal bias that he had not recommended him for the Southville job. Frequently when they were testing with high tension currents he caught Thompson looking at him with a sort of wonder and distinct approval.

One day when there was a fault on the mains, and Thompson had been out all night in the rain testing and digging out cables and opening junction boxes till he was tired and weary of all the world, he came into the works in a fine spirit of irritation. "We'll have to burn the damn thing out," he said. "Run up a machine on it."

By a specially complicated arrangement of the already complicated switchboard, it was possible to run any machine on any feeder. The Shift Engineer signalled for another machine, and Carstairs plugged her in on the faulty circuit. The fuse held for about one minute, then it blew with a flash and a bang right in Carstairs' face. Promptly and coolly he switched out and went through the complicated operation necessary to isolate that section.

Thompson watched him in some surprise. "You've got used to fuses, then," he said.

Carstairs flushed. "Er—" he hesitated a moment. Thompson waited in expectant silence, which is the severest cross-examination to a very young man. "I got a shock some time ago and it upset my nerves a bit. I'm alright now."

"It does upset you if you get it badly. What did you get, four hundred?"

"Two thousand."

"Good Lord. That's usually fatal. How did you manage it?"

Carstairs was silent for a moment; he looked at Smith who was down below in the engine room, then he turned and faced Thompson.

"It was my own fault. I was fooling about, trying some experiments, you know—and tired. It knocked me over. Smith and Darwen brought me round; Smith was jolly decent. You needn't say anything to him about it if you don't mind, it was his request." He looked Thompson steadily in the eyes like a practised liar.

Thompson smiled with a sort of admiration and pleasure. "You'll be more careful next time," he said.

"I shall, very careful," Carstairs answered, and Thompson smiled; he started to go away, but turned at the head of the steps.

"I shouldn't be in a hurry to leave this job if I were you. If a vacancy occurs, I think I can promise you a Shift Engineer job here." He went down the steps.

Carstairs felt a glow of exultation. "Thanks very much," he said.

It has been observed that misfortunes never come singly, it is equally true that good fortune comes in lumps also. The observant man like the successful gambler may gain much profit by regulating his actions to the ebb and flow of fortune. What appears to the casual or timid observer to be a particularly "long shot" is often the outcome of close observation, and not the mere freak of a desperate plunger. The tide of affairs never sets either way without warning. The watchful man, like the careful mariner, knows fairly well what to expect. Carstairs was a particularly close observer, and after Thompson's remarks and other things, he had an idea that the luck was flowing his way again; he was not much surprised therefore to find a letter waiting for him next morning from Darwen telling him of a vacancy at Southville, and urging him to run down and see the chief. "I have so strongly recommended you that I think the job is yours," he said.

Carstairs felt a singular satisfaction that he had gauged the trend of his luck so accurately. He went down to the works to see Thompson and get a day off. Thompson looked rather disappointed. "You'll get that alright," he said, "but I'm rather sorry. I've had an inquiry about Smith here (he held up a letter), there'll probably be a vacancy soon. I suppose you don't think it worth while waiting?"

Carstairs stood for a few minutes in deep thought. "I think it would be rather stemming the tide of my luck, wouldn't it?" he remarked, quite seriously.

Thompson smiled. "Alright. I'll write to the chief at Southville telling him I have had reason to considerably improve my opinion of you."

A slightly increased colour mantled on Carstairs' cheek. "Thanks! if you will," he said. Next day he went to Southville. He saw the chief and was appointed there and then. He spent the rest of the day with Darwen who showed a somewhat un-English effusion in his greeting. They strolled round the pleasant southern town together.

"This is civilization," Darwen said.

"That's so," Carstairs agreed.

In a week he left the grimy, little midland town, but before he went, there was a solemn gathering of the shift engineers and switchboard attendants in the drawing office for the purpose of presenting him with a standard work on electricity (Darwen had had a silver cigarette case). Smith made the presentation. In a somewhat nervous little speech, he expressed regret at Carstairs' departure, and rosy hopes of his future, with a few glowing tributes to his personal qualities. Carstairs thanked them very solemnly, and deflected the glowing tributes on to the assembled company. These little gatherings were a recognized institution in Central Stations; about every three or four months there would be a "whip round" of half a crown or so each to present some man who had been there about six months with a small token of esteem on the occasion of his departure to a better job. Some men have quite a collection of pipes, cigarette cases, walking sticks, slide rules, books, etc.

Just before he left the works for the last time, Foulkes, the stoker, accosted him.

"There was some gipsy-looking bloke asking if a man called Carstairs worked here, yesterday," he said.

"Did he say he wanted to see me?"

"No, sir, just asked if you worked here."

"What did you tell him?"

"I said you'd just got another job at Southville."

Carstairs was very serious. "What was he like?" he asked.

"Not quite as tall as you, sir. A rough-looking cove. Walked with a bit of a limp, like as though he'd bin shot or something sometime."

"A young man?"

"'Bout the same age as yourself."

"Ah. Poor devil! Limp, eh?"

"Not much, sir."

"Still quite enough, I expect. Poor devil! Well, thanks very much, Foulkes, good-bye." Carstairs held out his hand. "May bump up against you again some day. Good-bye!"

He turned and walked out across the yard, and the burly stoker looked after him with interest and curiosity. "They comes and goes," he soliloquized. "Rum thing about that gipsy bloke, still it ain't no business o' mine." Which was a point of view he had acquired in the army.

Darwen met Carstairs on the platform at Southville station.

"You're on with me for the first week," he said. His marvellous eyes sparkled with delight. "Where's your luggage? I've got a cab waiting. The new digs (I swopped this morning) are about two miles out, first-class place; thirty bob a week each. You don't mind that, do you? Piano too. Do you vamp? Never mind, I can do enough for two."

He seemed unusually excited. Carstairs couldn't help feeling flattered at the obvious pleasure his arrival caused.

As they rattled away in the cab, Darwen explained: "I'm jolly glad you've come, sort of levels up over that misunderstanding about this job."

"Oh! that's all right."

"Yes, it is now. You're a damn good sort, you know, Carstairs. You and I ought to run this job. Chief and chief assistant. How would that suit you?"

Carstairs smiled, a steady smile. "First-class," he answered.

Darwen was watching him closely, he seemed quite exultant at Carstairs' reply. "I knew it would. You wait till you see the chief and chief assistant here, they're not fit to run a mud dredger."

"Why don't you sack 'em then?" Carstairs laughed.

Darwen's eyes glittered strangely. "By Jove, that's it, they can't stick it much longer. Don't you see. Damme! I wouldn't give either of 'em a shift engineer's job."

"He seemed alright when I interviewed him."

Darwen snapped his fingers impatiently. "Bah! He's civil and all that, but he'll never be an engineer."

They pulled up at the diggings, a nice-looking semi-detached villa, with big, bay windows, and a well-kept front garden.

"This is alright," Carstairs commented, "if the grub's any good."

"Leave that to me, old chap. There's a daughter in the house, not bad looking."

"Go steady, Darwen."

"I'm as safe as houses, old chap! She's engaged to a grocer's assistant in the town here, and describes herself as 'a young lady'; 'me and two other young ladies,' you know the sort."

"H'm—ye-es."

They got the luggage stowed away and sat down in the sitting-room, a large room on the second floor with a big, bay window looking out on the quiet tree-shaded road. Some of Darwen's technical books and papers were scattered on the table; there were two big easy chairs and a comfortable-looking couch with numerous cushions scattered about; the carpet was light-coloured and thick. The general tone of the room was light, a sort of drawing-room effect. Probably to the expert feminine eye the curtains and other things were old and cheap, and dirty, and everything dusty. To Carstairs, straight from the dingy north, it appeared a palace. He threw himself into an easy chair and putting his legs up on another, sighed with content.

"This is jolly good, after that grimy hole!"

Darwen looked at him with sympathy. "That's so," he agreed. He sat down at the piano. "This isn't a bad instrument," he observed, "it is stipulated that the daughter may be allowed to play on it when she likes."

"Oh; the devil!"

"Not at all." He sounded one or two notes thoughtfully, then he glided off into something slow and soothing with a tinge of melancholy in it too. He stopped and looked at Carstairs critically. "That's how you feel," he said.

"Precisely," Carstairs answered. "What is it?"

"Chopin's Nocturne."

"Never heard of it."

"No? It's not supposed to appeal to the vulgar mind," Darwen laughed.

"Well, do it again. I like it."

Darwen swung round on the stool and "did it again," and went on and on, seeming to lose himself; his long, artistic fingers moved with a graceful, loving poise across the white keys. He stopped abruptly and wheeled round. "How's that?" he asked.

"First-class," Carstairs answered.

"What did you think of while I was playing?"

"What I want to do. As a matter of fact I elucidated a knotty point in connection with an idea I'm working out."

Darwen's dark eyes lighted up into a positive gleam. "It's curious," he said. "I bet when old Chopin composed that thing he had no ideas of electrical machinery in his head. What's the line of the invention?" He swung round and toyed with the keys; a low, sweet strain welled out, pleading, winning.

"Well, it occurred to me one day that there was no adequate reason why—" Carstairs stopped, seemingly interrupted by his own thoughts. "No," he said, as if speaking to himself. "It's not quite right after all." He laughed aloud suddenly. "The reasons," he said in his normal voice, "appear more and more adequate as I investigate the case, still——"

Darwen waited in expectation for some time, but Carstairs remained silent, lost in thought. Suddenly Darwen burst into life and rolled out an immense volume of sound from the piano.

A look of pain crossed Carstairs' features. "What the devil do you make that row for?"

"That row, as you call it, is from Wagner's 'Lohengrin.'"

"Is that so? Well, it's a jolly good imitation of a breakdown in the engine room."

Darwen laughed. "You have a vulgar mind, old chap." He branched off into an Hungarian waltz.

"That's better."

"Suited to your taste, you mean." He wandered on through numerous scraps of dance music. "Do you dance, Carstairs?"

"Not much."

"Oh, you must. You and I are going strong this winter."

"I'm going to work."

"Quite so, so am I. So much that the average man considers work is painful, misdirected effort. Do you want results, financial results?"

"You can bet your boots on that."

Darwen's fingers moved very slowly, it was a slow waltz tune, very slow; his gaze was far away. "The whole world is a shop," he said, speaking very slowly. "Everything is bought and sold; the most successful salesman is not the man who has the best goods, but he who shows them most advantageously. We sell our brains, you and I, our brains and nerves. The buyers are the Corporation; this collection of greengrocers, drapers, lawyers, doctors, and one navvy. They are entirely incapable of judging our technical abilities, they rely on the opinion of a fool; a sort of promoted wireman, the chief." The music ceased altogether, and he wheeled round facing Carstairs. "And however much you grind, and swot, and work, this fool (who only got his job because these people are unable to distinguish between a man who can use his hands and one who can use his head) will always fix your market value, and by his own little standard. The obvious conclusion is to get a better place in the shop window than the fool occupies."

Carstairs was silent.

"Do you agree with that?"

"Conditionally; depends on the method adopted."

Darwen blazed out into a sudden anger. "You're a fool, Carstairs. You and your methods. It doesn't matter a curse to you how you generate your electricity, does it? You want results, that's all! The correct methods are the most successful, the most economical." He sobered down again suddenly and smiled. "Look here, Carstairs, I want to make this job, yours and mine, worth more than it is. I like this town and I want to stay here, but I must get some bally pay."

"Hear, hear!"

"Well, I'm going to work the oracle. I'm going to know every man on the council, then I'm going to apply for a rise."

"I'm with you entirely."

"These things are easily worked. A man who's not handling his own money is very generous to his friends. Can you lie?"

"I'm an expert."

"Well, we shall want to lie sometimes. The age of truth has not yet arrived, and the man who sticks to the truth is before his time, consequently he's not appreciated, which means, he's not paid. I want pay. How's that?"

"Very good."

"I think so too. The mistake most people make is not knowing when to lie. To be a good liar requires more brains and just as much pluck as to tell the truth."

A slow smile flickered round Carstairs' face. "You introduce me to the proper people, and I'll tell 'em unblushingly that we're two jolly smart engineers very much underpaid."

"That's the idea! And they'll believe you, such is the paradox of this lying and trustful generation."

These young men, it will be seen, were very young, but their wisdom was much in excess of the pig-headed obstinacy of the average greybeard.

CHAPTER VIII

The works at Southville were rather larger than the works he had just left in the Midlands, and Carstairs felt a delightful sense of exaltation as he first took charge of a shift by himself. For eight hours he was entirely responsible for the efficient, economical, and safe working of about 6000 horsepower of plant. He felt a sense of responsibility, of age; he felt uplifted and steadied. He was very thoughtful, but very confident; he had taken great pains during the week he was on with Darwen to make himself thoroughly acquainted with everything about the station. His confidence was the direct outcome of his knowledge; he looked at the various engines, dynamos, boilers and switch gears, and felt that he fully grasped the why and wherefore of it all; he reviewed the possibilities of what might happen, what might break down, in the various component parts of the complicated whole, and what he would do to tackle it. He considered it all very solemnly and felt very confident; he knew he would not scare. Physically he was in the pink of condition, his head was very clear and his technical knowledge very bright from constant use.

The chief, an awkward-looking, flabby man, came down to see him on his first shift. "Well! do you think you can manage it?" he asked.

"Yes," Carstairs answered, looking his chief steadily in the eyes; the eyes were lack-lustre and heavy, they shifted uneasily and roamed round the engine room: he stepped up to a bit of bright brass work and rubbed his finger across it. "That won't do," he said, holding up a finger soiled with greasy dirt. "Make that man clean that." He turned and went away abruptly.

Carstairs called the engine driver, a little man of herculean build. "I knowed he'd spot that," the man said, in a tone of protest. "Got a eye like a hawk, he have."

It was the first time Carstairs had noticed this man particularly; they had been on different shifts before. He looked him over with approval; the arms, bare to the elbow, were astonishingly big and sinewy-looking; the chest was immensely deep, it arched fully outward from the base of the full, white throat; the top button of his shirt, left undone, showed a glimpse of a very white skin and the commencement of a tattoed picture ("Ajax defying his mother-in-law," the man called it); his eyes were a bright hazel brown, singularly piercing and steady.

"What's your name?"

"Bounce, sir." He stood up very straight, his piercing eyes resting with steady persistence on Carstairs' face.

The name seemed remarkably appropriate. The whole man was suggestive of indiarubber.

"Been a sailor or soldier, haven't you?"

"Sailor, sir. I done twelve year in the navy."

"Did you?" Carstairs looked at him, thoughtfully. "I've got an uncle in the navy."

"What name did you say, sir?"

"Carstairs."

"Carstairs, I knows him. Commander Carstairs. I was with him in the 'Mediterranean.' Nice bloke he was. You ask him if he remembers Bounce, sir, Algernon Edward Bounce, A.B., light-weight champion boxer of the Mediterranean Fleet. He was there when I won it at Malta."

The man's manner was exceedingly civil and respectful, but there was something about it that kept irresistibly before your mind all the time that he was an independent unit, a man. After twelve years of the sternest discipline in the world this man was as free as the air he breathed, there was no sign of servility. The thought passed through Carstairs' mind, as he looked at him, that this breed, truly, never could be slaves.

"I'll ask him when I see him. So you're a boxer, are you?"

"Yes, sir. Light weight, though I ought to go middle; eleven stone two pounds, that's my weight. I can get down to ten, but I ain't comfortable, though I 'ave a done it."

Carstairs measured him with his eyes. He seemed very little over five feet. Later on, he ascertained that he was exactly five feet three inches.

"I see. Just wipe over that brass work, will you?"

With remarkable alacrity, and a peculiarly prompt and decisive manner, the man saluted and set about his work.

Carstairs watched him in silence for some minutes, struck more than ever by the appropriateness of his name; he marvelled too at the singularity of his chief. In all that clean and bright engine room there was only that one bit of obscure brass work uncleaned, and the chief had spotted it. "An acutely observant man, evidently," Carstairs meditated.

Later on in the evening, the chief assistant dropped in. He was a big, heavily-built man with a well-shaped, massive head and handsome, even features with general indication of great strength—mental, moral, and physical; the sort of man many women go into ecstasies over: the element of the brute seemed fairly strong in him. To Carstairs' critical eyes and slow, careful scrutiny, he appeared, however, somewhat flabby. He stood behind Carstairs on the switchboard and watched him parallel machines.

Now the process known as "paralleling" or "synchronizing" alternating current dynamos or "alternators" is somewhat critical; the operator has to watch two voltmeters and get their reading exactly alike; he also has to watch two lamps (now usually supplanted by a small voltmeter) which grow dull and bright more or less quickly, from perhaps sixty times a minute to ten or twelve times per minute, as the engine drivers slowly vary the speed of the engines. When the voltmeters are reading alike, and during the small fraction of a minute when the lamps are at their brightest, the operator has to close a fairly ponderous switch; if he is too late or too early, but particularly if he is too late, there are unpleasant consequences: the machines groan and shriek with an awe-inspiring sound, keeping it up very often for a considerable time; all the lamps on the system surge badly, and the needle of every instrument on the switchboard does a little war dance on its own, till the machines settle down. Sometimes the consequences of a "bad shot" are even more dire. There once appeared in one of the technical journals a pathetic little poem about a pupil's "first shot," how "he gazed severely at the voltmeters," and "looked sternly at the lamps," then he "took a howler," and "switched out again," "wished he hadn't," "Plugged in again and—bolted." In a similar journal there was another sort of prose poem, too, written in mediæval English which finished up a long tale of woe thus: "He taketh a flying shot and shutteth down ye station."

This was the operation then (in which every man needs all his wits and some more than they possess) in which Carstairs was engaged at a critical period of the load (for be it remembered the time available is always strictly limited) when the chief assistant stood behind him. He remained calm and impassive, as behoved his countenance, for some time, then, just when the phases were beginning to get longer, and Carstairs took hold of the switch handle in readiness to plug in; the chief assistant stepped excitedly up behind him. "Now! Be careful! Watch your volts! There! There! You might have had that one! Look out, here she comes! Watch your volts, man, watch your volts!"

Carstairs felt like knocking him down, he missed two good phases that he might have taken, then he "plugged in" rather early. The machines groaned a little, but soon settled down.

"Too soon! Too soon!" the chief assistant said,

In angry silence Carstairs turned and signalled the engine driver to speed up the machine. The chief assistant left the board, and went out without further comment.

"Does that ass always play the mountebank behind a chap when he's paralleling?" Carstairs asked his junior.

"Sometimes, he gets fits now and again: Fitsgerald, the chap that's just left, turned round and cursed him one day. I nearly fell off the board with laughing. Old Robinson looked at me. 'What the devil are you laughing at?' he said. I might have got your job if it hadn't been for that. Fitsgerald got the sack over it."

"Apparently I shouldn't have missed much," Carstairs said as he went away.

When he got home at about half-past twelve, Darwen was sitting up for him. "How did you get on?" he asked, with his genial smile.

"Oh, first-class." They sat down to supper. "Took rather a howler, paralleling six and seven. That ass Robinson was jigging about like a monkey-on-stick behind me, telling me what to do. Next time I shall stand aside and ask if he'd prefer to do it himself."

"Don't do that, old chap, he's a malice-bearing beast. Funks always are! Don't take any notice of him. Forget him, or send him away; ask if he'd mind watching the drivers, as they brought her down too quick, or something, last time."

Carstairs was silent.

"Fitsgerald got the sack for cursing him over the same thing. He was a red-headed chap. We were talking about Robinson's unpleasant ways (he'd had a go at me the day before). I said he wanted a good cursing to cure him of it, and I'm blowed if Fitz didn't curse him about a couple of days later." Darwen's eyes seemed to flicker with an uncanny sort of light, his voice dropped into a reflective tone. "Threatened to chuck him over the handrail if he didn't go off the switchboard. Hasty chaps those red-headed fellows are. We had a chap at school—what school were you at, Carstairs?"

"Cheltenham."

"Were you? I was at Clifton, went to Faraday House, after."

Pushing back his chair, Darwen, got up and went to the piano, he played some very slow, soft music, slow and soothing, it breathed the breath of peace into Carstairs' troubled soul.

"Robinson is only a fool," Darwen said over his shoulder. "I feel rather sorry for him—hasn't got the heart of a mouse—gets in a frightful stew when he's got to parallel himself—he's not a bad-hearted chap—done me one or two rather good turns."

"I thought he was alright too, at other times." Carstairs felt the spirit of peace stirring within him.

"It's kinder to him to let him drift, he doesn't mean anything—can't help himself—nervous, you know. I just smile at him."

"Suppose that is the best way. I'll have a shot next time, anyway. Made me rather ratty to-night."

Darwen played for some time in silence. "Chief come in at all?" he asked, at length.

"Yes. Came in and groused about a bit of brass work being dirty."

"That's like the chief. He'll never express an opinion on anything except its external appearance; very safe man, the chief, extremely safe, but stupid: he'll fail, not through what he does, but what he leaves undone." He ceased speaking, but the music went on slowly welling out, breathing good will and trust to all mankind. It died slowly away leaving the tired listener in a blissful state of rest. Darwen got up and looked at him with sparkling, observant eyes.

"Good-night, old chap. I'm going to bed."

Carstairs arose slowly from the big, easy chair, "Wish I could play like you, Darwen."

The rest of the week passed (at the works) with singular uneventfulness, in fact never afterwards did Carstairs have such an uneventful week on load shift; but all the same the memory of his first week on shift by himself remained always clear and distinct above all other experiences; never afterwards did he feel the delightful thrill of responsibility, of excitement, of awe almost, as he walked round the engine room and boiler house surveying the men and plant, for those first few days, and felt that for eight hours he was monarch of all he surveyed; with all the other men far out of call, spreading out in different parts of the town, reading their papers, at the theatre or music halls, while he was responsible for the lightening of their darkness, and the safe keeping of the men and plant around him. In after life he often reflected that the princely salary of £104 per annum was singularly inadequate for the kingly nature of his office; but the greengrocers, the doctors, and publicans thought it was remarkably good for a man who spent most of his time walking about with his hands in his pockets. These works had been making a financial loss of from £100 to £2000 every year since they started, with the exception of one year, when, by careful manipulation of the accounts, they managed to show a profit of £20, which, under the expert examination of a proper accountant, would probably have been converted to a loss of £500.

Darwen watched the finances with a keen interest. He was very chummy with Robinson; they studied the reports of the various stations together with great earnestness. "A loss or a profit doesn't matter much to a corporation as long as they have continuity of supply." Darwen laid it down as a law, and Robinson heartily agreed. That axiom was only a half truth, but the foundation of all municipal work is only a half truth, so it did not matter much.

Robinson was very proud. "We never have the lights out here," he said. And Darwen smiled approval. "That's so," he agreed, and on his shift he took care that it always should be so; he had every engine in the place warmed up, ready for instant use, and two boilers always lighted up and under pressure in case of necessity. Robinson approved of his method, and the chief—the chief grumbled about the boiler house being dirty, but on Darwen's shift it was cleaner and more tidy than on any other shift; also the engine room was brighter and more spotless, so much and so persistently so, in fact, that the cautious chief was drawn out of his shell to express a decided opinion to the chairman of the electricity committee (who remarked on it). "Yes," the chief said, with a little flicker of enthusiasm, "that man Darwen is decidedly the best engineer I've ever had." Which remark was not overlooked by the chairman, a doctor, a large man with a large imposing black beard, who had been struck, as who could fail to be, by the remarkable beauty of face and form and general impression of intelligence of the athletic young engineer.

It was not very long after Darwen had observed the chief and chairman in conversation and looking pointedly at him, that he developed certain symptoms which, in his opinion, necessitated medical advice. Common sense, he explained to Carstairs, pointed out the chairman as the man to go to.

The doctor recognized him at once. "Hullo!" he said, looking him over with distinct approval, for Darwen's winning, frank smile captivated him at once. "Has the electricity got on your system?" The doctor was a jovial, hearty man.

Darwen laughed. He showed precisely the right amount of amusement at the joke, then, shortly and precisely, he stated (almost verbatim from a medical book he had looked up in the reference library) the symptoms of a more or less minor complaint.

Recognizing it at once, "I'll soon put that right for you," the doctor said, in his hearty, jovial way. His extensive practice was largely due to his jovial manner; he appreciated the clear and precise statement of the symptoms.

"It's nothing serious then, doctor?"

"Oh, no!—no! It might have been, of course, if you'd let it go on."

"Ah! that's just it; it's the same with an engine, you know, 'a stitch in time.' I like to get expert advice at the start."

This was business from the doctor's point of view. He became serious. "Most true," he said. "Still, people will aggravate their complaints by so-called home treatments."

"The penny-wise policy, doctor, the results of combined ignorance and meanness."

"I wonder," Darwen said, later on, as he poured the contents of a medicine bottle down the bathroom waste pipe, "I wonder what in thunder this is, a sort of elixir of life served out to most people for most complaints at a varying price. Funny what stuff people will pour down their necks."

Some hours later, as they sat facing each other in their big easy chairs, Darwen said: "Didn't you say your guv'nor was a parson, Carstairs?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Because the time has arrived to trot him out."

"What do you mean?" Carstairs flushed rather angrily.

"I have not got a guv'nor," Darwen observed, sadly; "haven't any recollection of my guv'nor. He went down with the Peninsula coming home from Australia. He was a mining engineer."

Carstairs was softened. "Hard lines," he said, and there was much sympathy in his tone.

"It is," Darwen agreed. "A guv'nor helps one so much. I want you to get your guv'nor to come down and stay with us for a few days. What College was he at?"

"Christ Church, Oxford."

"Then it's almost a cert he'll bump up against some one he knows down here, some other parson, or somebody. I want to get into the chairman's crowd, he's churchwarden at St James'. I'm going there."

Carstairs removed his pipe slowly from his lips and stared more or less blankly. It was the limit of surprise he allowed himself ever to express.

"Yes, and I'm joining St James' Gym. and the Conservative Club. Robinson has introduced me to one or two rather decent people, too; Robinson belongs here, you know. To-morrow you and I are going to sign on for a dancing class; Robinson's people put me on to it; Robinson doesn't dance. I'm pretty good, and you'll be good with practice. Every fit man can dance well with practice."

Carstairs puffed silently at his pipe for some minutes. "Will the dividends on dancing, gymnastics, church-going, etc., pan out better than working?" he asked at length.

"Do you think you are getting the full value of your present stock of knowledge?"

"Not by chalks, but one never does."

"I beg to differ; some men get paid considerably over the value of their knowledge."

"Perhaps you're correct," Carstairs admitted, after a pause.

"Well, I want to join the happy band. Shove your knowledge forward, having due regard to the manner of your doing so, that it does not defeat its own ends. And that is wisdom; you're paid for the combined product of your knowledge and your wisdom. Wisdom is the most scarce, the most valuable, and the most difficult to acquire: it is the knowledge of the use of knowledge. Do you see?"

"They bear the relation to each other of theory and practice in engineering."

"Not quite. Theory is an effort of the imagination, either a spontaneous effort of your own, based on known facts, or an assimilation of the results of other men's practice as recorded by them in books. The sources of error are twofold; the limits of your own imagination, your own conception of the other man's description, and the limit of the other man's gift of expression and explanation. Practice is your own conception and remembrance of what you yourself have personally experienced. Both are knowledge; wisdom is distinct from either."

Carstairs smiled. "Well, it's your wisdom I doubt, not your knowledge. I mean to say, that my application of my knowledge to my conception of your application of your knowledge, as expressed by you in the present discussion, leads me to doubt the accuracy of your application of your knowledge to the case under discussion. The possible sources of error being in my imagination or your expression, and as my imagination is a fixed quantity, unless you can improve your expression, I shall fail to coincide with you. How's that?"

"That's very good." Darwen took a deep breath and laughed. "Let me have another shot. Who gets the most money, the successful professor or the successful business man?"

"The successful business man."

"Hear, hear! That's because he's selling wisdom, while the professor is selling knowledge."

"I disagree, on two points. Number one, the business man sells necessities, boots for instance; the professor sells luxuries, quaternions, for instance." Carstairs paused and quoted, "'What I like about quaternions, sir, is that they can't be put to any base utilitarian purpose.'"

"Quaternions, my dear chap——"

"Half a minute! Number two, the business man sells knowledge of men and affairs as opposed to the professor's knowledge of things only."

"The Lord has delivered you into my hands, Carstairs."

"I saw it as soon as I'd spoken."

"Well, let us acquire knowledge of men and affairs, instead of merely of things—engines."

"I admit that my conception of——"

"Chuck it."

"Well, you've made a good point."

"You're Harveyized steel, Carstairs, and it gives me immense satisfaction to see that I'm making some impression on you. Well, you may go on grinding away all your life, and if nobody knows of the knowledge you possess, you'll never get paid for it."

"But I will show it by the application of it in my work. The chief is bound to see it."

"Not a ha'porth, my boy. And if he does, the chances are that he'll depreciate it in the eyes of the world, or get you the sack, because he'll be afraid of you."

"I admit the probability of those possibilities."

"As an engineer you must never forget the interdependence of parts: as a successful man you must never overlook the interdependence of everything in nature. Smile at men as if you were overjoyed to see them and they'll give you anything, as long as it's not their own property."

"Hear, hear!"

"Our object in life is to persuade the councillors to dole us out an extra dose of the ratepayers' money."

"I admit the correctness of the conclusion."

"Then let us, with all circumspection, smile on the councillors and their wives and daughters, particularly the daughters."

"Nothing would please me more, provided the daughters reciprocate the smile."

"They'll do that alright, old chap, if you only do it the right way. The most potent force in nature is the love of women; it behoves us as engineers to utilize this force. There is nothing much that a woman in love won't do, and there is even less that she won't make the poor fool, who imagines she is in love with him, do."

"It's supposed to be specially dangerous to run two girls in parallel."

"You may take it as proved that, 'In the same town and on the same side of it, there cannot be two girls in love with the same man, etc.' All the same, the idea of it is rather fascinating." Darwen's eyes sparkled.

"We are wandering from the point."

"Quite so. Are you going to get your guv'nor down?"

"Look here. Have you got any money?"

"Well, I'm not absolutely stony."

"Then lend me two quid and I'll go home for a week-end and bring him back."

Darwen fished out his purse with a smile. "The seeds of wisdom are in you, I perceive," he said.

Suddenly the strains of music were wafted in to them through the open window. "What in thunder is that?" Darwen asked, getting up with a puzzled look and gazing out into the street. "By Jove, it's a kid with a mouth organ, looks like a gipsy kid."

With a serious face Carstairs got up and looked out of the window too. The boy was looking directly up at the window; as soon as he caught sight of Carstairs, he changed his tune abruptly.

"What's that tune, Darwen? I seem to know it."

"That's 'The Gipsy's Warning.' The kid plays very well, too, for an instrument like that. I thought it was a violin for a minute."

They stood up at the window and watched. The boy played the same thing twice over, then he played a Scotch tune. Then he opened the gate and walking across the little lawn stood under the window and touched his cap.

Carstairs put his hand in his pocket and pulled out sixpence. "Wait a minute," he said to the boy. He went downstairs and spoke to him. "Do you come from Scotland?"

"Yes, sir; I seen you there. Sam's down here and he's after you." He turned and went out into the road again and disappeared.

Carstairs looked after him with a troubled frown, then he returned to the sitting-room.

Darwen looked at him with observant, surprised eyes. "Did you know that kid?" he asked.

"No, but he knew me. I once had a row with a gipsy in Scotland; flattened him out, broke his leg; he's been after me ever since. That kid came to tell me he's in this town now. Next pay day I shall invest in a young bull dog."

Carstairs sat down again in the big easy chair and gazed at nothing. His thoughts were far away; he had no doubt who had sent the gipsy boy to warn him. "The most potent force, the love of women." Good God! and what of the love of men? A gipsy girl. It was quite impossible.

Then Darwen played—pleading, soothing music—and Carstairs told him the whole story.

"You'll have to remove that gipsy, that Sam—in self-defence, mind, of course. And the girl—you couldn't marry a gipsy, of course, but it's not necessary."

And Carstairs listened in silence.

CHAPTER IX

Time passed, and although Carstairs kept a good look out, he saw nothing of Sam, the gipsy; he bought a substantial ash walking stick which he kept constantly by him. On the night shift he tackled Bounce, the ex-sailor. "Can you fence?"

"Yes, sir, I'm very good at fencing."

Carstairs smiled, but he knew all the same that it was a simple statement of the truth without any affected modesty or blatant boasting. "I'll bring down a couple of sticks, and you can give me a little instruction if you will."

"I shall be very pleased, sir."

He had a manner all his own of making even this simple statement; it suggested an equality of manhood while admitting an inferiority of station; every word and action showed a confident, self-contained, self-respecting man.

So in the wee sma' hours of the morning, when everyone else was in bed, Carstairs and Bounce fenced with single sticks in a clear space in the engine room. They got very chummy over these contests. Carstairs had frequently had long yarns with Bounce before in the quietness of the night watch, but now as they smote each other good and hard (for they wore neither helmets, jackets, nor aprons) and Carstairs smiled and Bounce grinned like a merry imp, and occasionally apologized for an "extra stiff un," they seemed to draw very close together, so much so, that one night Carstairs told him the tale of Sam the gipsy.

Bounce shook his head seriously. "Gipsies is nasty blokes," he observed, pondering deeply. "Some good fighting men amongst 'em, too." He pondered again. "I should think now that a bit of boxing would be more useful to you than fencing. Or—have you got a pistol?"

"Yes, and a set of gloves. I'll bring them both down to-morrow."