Jack Carstairs of the power house

by Sydney Sandys

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.