Jack Carstairs of the power house

by Sydney Sandys

CHAPTER X

Early on the Monday morning the Reverend Hugh and his son Jack entrained for Southville. Jack was pre-occupied with some deep thought, and his father noticed it.

"Sorry to leave the old place, Jack?"

"Er—yes. Nothing touches this place for me."

"You must get to know some nice people at Southville."

Jack pulled himself together; he had been gazing earnestly at Lady Cleeve's house nestling in among the pine trees; the slope of a hill suddenly shut out the view, and Jack turned to his father with attention undivided. "You know I'm not so keen on the people as the work, but Darwen seems to think that in municipal work you can't get on at all without friends."

The parson's eyes lighted up with approval as he listened to his son. "Work is the thing that makes life enjoyable, but you must have friends, you know."

Jack was silent for some time. "It seems a rotten state of things," he observed at length, and his father laughed aloud.

Darwen was on shift when they arrived, but Jack took his father to their diggings, and very soon after Darwen came in; his handsome face lighted up with a beaming smile as he shook hands with the Reverend Hugh. "I say," he said, "I should have known you for Jack's father if I had met you in the street alone."

The old parson smiled with approval as his shrewd grey eyes took in a complete impression of face and form and expression. He succumbed at once to the charming manner and charming personality of the tall, clean-looking young engineer. "Wholesome, athletic, happy-go-lucky, but intelligent," was his mental summing up. Such were the sort of friends he expected his son to make; he looked from one to the other with keen approval. They pushed forward the easiest chair and plied him with cushions and tobacco. They took him back to his own college days.

"You fellows seem very comfortable here," he said.

"Not bad," they agreed.

He smiled. "It was always 'not bad,'" he said. "Hullo!" he glanced along the backs of the books on the shelf at his side. "Tennyson, Keats, Dante, Shelley, 'Hamlet,' 'Julius Cæsar,' 'Barrack Room Ballads,' 'The Prince'! I didn't know you had a fancy for poetry, Jack."

"Not guilty! Those are Darwen's." Jack was stretched out, six feet of muscularity, full length on a slender-looking couch. He puffed slowly at his pipe. "Those are mine"—he pointed to a shelf on the other side.

His father glanced along the backs of them, reading the names aloud. "'Dynamo, Electric Machinery,' h-m, bulky volume that! 'Manual of the Steam Engine'; 'The Steam Engine,' h-m, three volumes. 'Polyphase Currents,' ah! 'Text Book of Heat,' 'Theoretical Chemistry,' 'Trigonometry,' 'Integral Calculus,' 'Differential Calculus' (Todhunter). That's mine, I think. I thought Edwards was the man on the Calculus nowadays."

"Ye-es, Darwen's got him somewhere. I prefer Todhunter, leaves more to the imagination, you know."

"Ah, the imagination. Quite so."

"Seems to me the limit of a man's possibility in anything is the limit of his imagination."

"And his control of it, Jack."

"Exactly."

Darwen had his chair tilted back wards, blowing clouds of smoke vertically upwards to the ceiling. He spoke slowly between the puffs. "Carstairs—Jack, has got no soul above machines, inanimate lumps of iron; the hum of a smoothly running engine is the only poetry that appeals to him, so it does to me, but I like a change; little bits of Shelley, little drops of Kipling——"

"I admit that 'M'Andrews' Hymn' is a real poem."

"Shut up! You reek of the engine room. I like a change. Variety is the soul of amusement." He dropped his chair on to its front legs again and looked at Jack's father. "Hasn't some one said that?" he asked.

"I really couldn't say, perhaps so." He smiled with amusement.

Darwen looked at him steadily, thoughtfully, for a moment. "Do you know I think there's a touch of the Dago in me—or perhaps it's Celt. Do you think I'm Irish?"

"My dear boy, you should know that best."

"That's so! English, the mater says, pure English, but I don't know. I'm a bit of a rogue, you know; the instinct of dishonesty is very strong at times."

The Reverend Hugh laughed, and Darwen jumped up. "I'll play you a tune, if you'll stand it," he said. He sat down and played, wandering on from one thing to another, ever and anon glancing at the old vicar, then he got up. "Does that bore you?" he asked.

"Bore me? My dear fellow, you are an accomplished musician."

He flushed slightly with pleasure. "I like music. Let's have a trot round the town and show your guv'nor the sights, Carstairs."

"The guv'nor knows the vicar of St James."

"Does he? By Jove! that's good."

So they went avisiting.

The Reverend Moorhouse was short and very broad, he had more the legal than the clerical type of face; an old international Rugby footballer, the impress of the game was still strong on him, vigorous, keen, bluff. It was evident he was pleased to see his old friend, he said so, and invited all three of them to dinner the next night.

The dinner was good; Mrs Moorhouse was plain, stout, chatty, and exceedingly kind; the Misses Moorhouse, two of them, were tall, athletic, and pretty. They talked about hockey and tennis and swimming; the two young men were charmed. Carstairs was quite vivacious, Darwen seemed to scintillate; Mrs Moorhouse watched him with approving eyes, and later on, when he played and sang with the elder Miss Moorhouse, she took possession of him; crossing the room she sat down beside him. "You must come and help us at the church," she said.

"I shall be delighted," he answered, with real pleasure shining in his eyes.

The vicar's wife was business-like and decisive, she fastened him down by compact and contract at once.

Altogether it was a merry and delightful evening, and when they at length departed it was in a particularly bright and happy mood. They walked back; it was not very far and a beautiful starry night; there was a tinge of frost in the air; Jack Carstairs threw his chest out and took a deep gulp of the fresh, crisp air.

"I believe these little diversions do improve one's form, you know, I feel like a sprint." He looked up and down the long silent street of semi-detached, shrubbery-enclosed villas. As he looked back his face suddenly hardened into a fierce look of anger, his mouth shut like a steel trap, and his grey eyes took on a cold, steely glitter; for just as he glanced round, a rough-looking man, carrying a big stick had limped past a lamp light on the other side of the road. Carstairs said no word, but there was an abruptness in his manner that attracted his father's attention.

"What's the matter, Jack?" He glanced round and Darwen followed suit, but the man was now in the shade and hardly noticeable.

"Nothing," he answered, staring straight ahead; but out of the corner of his eye he caught a meaning look from Darwen, and in response jerked his head ever so slightly backwards and to one side.

Promptly Darwen dropped back to do up his bootlace. A few seconds later, the man with the limp, who had crossed the road and was now directly behind them, quickened his pace and limped past. Carstairs stopped and faced round as the limping step drew near, but the man's face was averted and he went on without a word or sign; some way ahead they saw that he was joined by another man, hitherto unobserved, who, without any word of greeting, stepped out of the shadow and walked along with him; he seemed exceptionally short, but his hands hung down below his knees—probably a hunchback.

"Those men are after no good," the Reverend Hugh observed.

"No. I expect not. There have been several burglaries round here lately."

Darwen held out his walking-stick. "Do you notice the sticks we carry? Guaranteed to kill at one smite." He laughed lightly. Something of the spirit of the party returned to them, and they went home more or less lighthearted.

After the old vicar was safely in bed, Darwen went along to Jack's bedroom. He was half expected; he sat down on a chair while Carstairs stretched himself, half undressed, on the bed.

"That was Sam?" Darwen asked.

"Yes, I'm sure of it! Don't know who the other chap is, seems as if he's rounding up a gang. What do you think of putting the police on it?"

"Don't see how you can! Anyhow the scandal of it, if there was an exposure, would wreck your rosy prospects in this town. A young man with a fancy for spending his nights in the woods with charming gipsy maidens is not the sort that the wife of the vicar of St James can allow to associate with her daughters."

Carstairs swore volubly. "Do you know she's got a slavey's job at Lady Cleeve's, the local big bug's at home."

"Did she know where you lived?"

"Yes, I told her."

"You were a fool."

"I don't know." Carstairs was very thoughtful. "Damn it, she knocks spots off any girl I've seen yet. She's improving, too."

Darwen's eyes glistened. "I like playing with fire myself," he said.

"It's our job," Carstairs answered, cynically. "We're paid to do it."

"It is damn rotten for you, I admit. Have you got a revolver?"

"Yes."

"Oh! but that's no good either, you mustn't attract attention in that way. I tell you what, we'll set a trap and collar the brute. You'll have to be the bait. And—say Bounce and I, we ought to be able to effect a capture."

"That's so, but what then?"

"Oh, anything. Bribery, threats, or we might shanghai the beast off to Australia."

Carstairs was dubious. "They'll give it a rest for a bit now. He's as cunning as a fox, that gipsy, he knows I recognized him. Damn him! I'd have hit him over the head with my stick as he passed if the guv'nor hadn't been there."

"Well, anyway, shall we call in Bounce? You've already told him the story, haven't you?"

"Yes. Bounce's great idea is a heavy right on the jaw. 'Get in close and hit hard,'" he said.

"That's very sound, too. After your guv'nor's gone, we'll hold a council of war. Bounce may have some reliable pals. Good night, old chap, keep your pecker up."

"Thanks. It's jolly good of you to lend me a hand over a rotten business like this."

"That's alright. As I observed before, I like playing with fire."

"Well, I hope you won't get burnt over this. Good night."

"Good night."

Next day the old vicar went back to his flock again leaving a cordial invitation for Darwen to come and see them. Jack saw him off.

"A very fine young fellow that. I'm glad you've made friends with him."

"Yes! he's a jolly good sort," Jack answered, enthusiastically, having fresh in his memory Darwen's offer of assistance.

The same night, Carstairs, Bounce, and Darwen held a council of war in the shift engineer's office. "What we wants to do," Bounce said, "is to find out what 'e wants. If it's murder 'e's after, we'll shanghai 'im, if it's only a row, we'll give 'im that, but the first thing to do is to capture 'im."

Carstairs sat on the side of the table puffing slowly at his pipe. "Thanks very much for the suggestion and offer of assistance, Bounce, but I don't want to shanghai him, I only want to get a fair show, also I don't mind giving him a fair show if that will satisfy him."

The Quixotic strain of the Englishman was coming out in him. They observed him in wonder. "Giving him a fair show?" they queried in a breath.

He drawled very slowly. "I mean to say," he said, "I broke his leg. I beat him once, but I had some assistance; if he fancies he can give me a licking fair and square, I don't mind giving him a trial, provided, of course, that that is really what is worrying him, you understand."

Bounce nodded, a compound now of comprehension and disapproval, his face expressed a keen appreciation of the principle involved, but a strong objection to the practice suggested. "It's revenge 'e's after, 'e don't want no fair play. Them sort o' blokes don't appreciate fair play. You give 'im a licking once, 'e wants to give you one in the back now. Most like you could buy 'im off."

"A mixture of threats and bribes," Darwen suggested. "We'll capture him and frighten the wits out of him; say that we're going to give him in charge for attempted murder. Then you can offer him a small sum to go away and stay away. We'll explain that if he ever gets within speaking distance of you again, you'll promptly have him arrested."

"That's it," Bounce agreed.

"I suppose that is the best," Carstairs said, thoughtfully. "Do you know I feel when I think of him that a damn good licking is the only thing I can offer him. Yet when I consider that the poor devil is permanently lame because—well, because I went off with his girl, well, dash it, he has my entire sympathy. In my case I remember distinctly that it gave me a sensation of extreme pleasure to think I was whacking that brute for the sake of the girl. I'm not exactly pugilistic, but I've never experienced anything so pleasureable as the one or two smites I got home on him with the idea that they were for the girl. I can understand the persistence with which he is following me. She's the finest girl in all the world." His keen grey eyes seemed to glow with a fierce ardour. At that moment he was violently in love.

They looked at him in open wonder.

He stood up and stretched himself. "I should feel a better man if I went out now and searched out that gipsy and bashed him, and then went straight across to the girl and married her. What the devil are these wishy-washy dances, these tuppenny ha'penny jobs, this sham respectability? Simply a drag on a man's actions. I want to do something."

Bounce nodded vigorously. "You're fit," he said, "trained fine. In the pink of condition. That's how you feels when you comes ashore after a three months' cruise. 'To hell with everything. Let's do something.' That's it, ain't it?"

"That's it precisely."

"How you feel at the end of the 'footer' season," Darwen chimed in. "Or when a match is postponed and you've got to dissipate your energies on the desert air. Usually you make a thundering idiot of yourself."

"I suppose that is so, but you enjoy it." Carstairs became thoughtful again. "There are only certain times, practically moments, when you can do these things; you do not appreciate them in your normal condition, besides there's the guv'nor and the mater, and really I know very little about the girl."

Darwen clapped him on the shoulder. "Wake up, old chap! You're dreaming. You can't marry a gipsy girl; she'd want to feed you on gipsy stew and half-hatched pheasant's eggs."

"When you goes off to-night at twelve o'clock, me and Mister Darwen will shadow you like, and catch this yer Sam if he's knocking about. I'll have a line in my pocket so's we can tie him up." Bounce was very serious; he turned to Darwen. "When shall I meet you, sir?"

"Oh, at the corner, at five minutes to twelve."

"Five minutes to twelve at the corner? Very good, sir. Good night." Bounce was just going when a boy came in to say that a policeman had come to report some street light out. Darwen went out to see him. "Half a minute," he said. He was back in a few moments with glowing eyes. "By Jove! that's a whacking great chap, somewhere near seven feet, I should think."

Bounce snorted. "Them big blokes ain't much use," he observed.

"Would you like to take him on for a few rounds, Bounce?"

"Well now, maybe 'e'd be mistook if 'e was to try to 'lift' me an' I didn't want to go."

Darwen clapped his hands. "Well done. I'll tell you what. We'll put down five bob for the winner and half a crown for the loser, and you shall mutually arrest each other. Start at the boiler house and you chuck him into the street, or he lugs you into the engine room. How's that?"

"Very good, sir. If 'e'll take on, that five bob's mine." The little sailor was very confident.

"Hurray!" Darwen rushed out to the door to interview the policeman and explain the terms to him. The big man's eyes glistened. "There ain't no man in this town as I can't arrest," he said. He glanced up and down the street. "You'll make it all right if the sergeant comes, sir? You wanted my assistance to eject a drunk bloke or something, eh?" he winked, knowingly.

"That's alright. We'll put a boy to watch for the sergeant."

"Right you are, sir." The big man followed Darwen into the engine room with long, stately strides and easy, confident air. He towered a good six inches over Darwen's head.

Bounce stood up and eyed him up and down, then he put his hands to his mouth and gave a mock hail. "Main top there!" he yelled.

The policeman smiled. "Don't you come talking to growed-up men," he said. "Shall I take 'im now, sir?"

"Half a minute," Carstairs said. "Let's weigh the combatants."

So they proceeded in solemn procession to the coal scales.

Bounce was eleven stone eight and a half pounds. "'E oughtn't to be out without his p'rambulator," the guardian of the law remarked, as he stepped into the scales, and brought them up with a bang. They shifted the weight along the rod till at nineteen stone eight and a half pounds it balanced.

Bounce nodded approval. "'E'd go near ten stone with 'is boots off," he said, with conviction.

"How tall are you?" Darwen asked.

"Six feet and a half. I was the tallest man in the Grenadier Guards when I was in it."

They went back to the boiler house and stood in a clear space under an arc lamp. The policeman took off his long coat and helmet, "In case 'e wipes 'is boots in it while I'm carrying of 'im."

"Open them big doors," Bounce requested, "so as I won't 'ave to push 'im through the window."

The two men stood facing each other with smiling, confident faces. The big man stretched out a hand that would have supplied a whole cannibal tribe with a substantial meal. "Are you coming quiet?" he asked.

"No! I ain't," Bounce answered, circling slowly round him.

The whole works watched in eagerness.

Suddenly the big man made a short rush and a grab, but Bounce was not there; instead he had dived at the policeman's legs and pulled him down. He made another grab as he was falling, but the sailor was like an eel. He dodged, and slipping round to the back of him, took a grip with both hands on the policeman's collar. "Open them doors," he shouted, shuffling backwards and dragging the big man all along the dirty floor.

The entire staff, on the broad grin, lined the doorway, as Bounce dragged his burden through and deposited it on the pavement. Then he stood up and tossed his shoulders with a jaunty, nautical air. "Now, my lad, you run away, and play with the nurse-maids," he said.

In angry silence the policeman reached out for his helmet and coat; Darwen slipped half a crown into his hand, and he went out into the night, tramping sullenly along his beat.

Bounce beamed and pocketed his five shillings. "Them big blokes ain't never no use," he said. "Five minutes to twelve? Good night, sir!" He departed. But Darwen sat down on the edge of the table.

"Wonderful chap, Bounce." They chatted for some minutes, then dropped into silence. Darwen broke it.

"For God's sake, Carstairs, don't go and do anything silly over that gipsy girl. It would break your poor old guv'nor's heart; he was holding forth to me, when you were out, about how very careful a young man ought to be to avoid awkward entanglements: you were so very steady, he said. I think he rather fancied I was not so steady. 'Young men fly into an engagement with a girl because she sings nicely or something superficial like that.' Does the gipsy sing?" Darwen laughed.

"Yes, said she sang very well."

"Did she? What becoming modesty."

"She was natural, that's all. Her father told her she was good, and she repeated it."

"Her father? I didn't know that gipsies were always certain on these points. Did you see him?"

"Oh, yes, spoke to him; at least, listened to his music."

"His music?" Darwen made a motion of turning a handle.

"Oh, no; the violin. I'm not much of an authority on these things, but it seemed to me good, exceedingly good, the best I'd heard."

"This is interesting. Couldn't you introduce me to the family?"

"No. For the sake of my peace of mind I shall have to avoid that girl like the very devil."

"My dear chap! probably St James, the footman, has already supplanted you in the lady's affections. Wonderfully fascinating chaps, those footmen. By the way, it's not usual for gipsies to go into domestic service, is it?"

"No, I don't think it is." Carstairs pulled out his watch. "I must go and have a look round; the load is heavy to-night." He opened the door and Darwen followed him.

They went out through the engine room into the boiler house. Carstairs brightened up at once, the hum of running machinery, and the bustle of working men, was the breath of life to him; his face hardened and his eye brightened with the "splendid purpose." Darwen observed him closely.

"You're a born engineer, you know, Carstairs."

"Do you think so? Sometimes I think so myself." He looked around him with keen appreciation at the long row of boilers under steam, with the furnace-doors red hot, "a beautiful orange glow" he was wont to describe it as; at the coal-grimed, brawny men, with the sweat running off them as they sliced up the dazzling white fires. He gazed critically into the blinding glare as they opened the red hot doors, the radiant heat scorched his face and the intense light dazzled his eyes, so that for some minutes afterwards everything was green and blue to him. He looked at the men with their hard, strong faces and their bare muscular arms and chests, the whole scene gave him a sensation of extreme pleasure. To him it was more than beautiful, it was sublime. A sensation of majestic force, of overwhelming power, such as a towering mountain, the limitless ocean, or a vast moorland conjure up. This sensation was his now, and it was uplifting, artistic; he felt beyond the earth; yet in many ways there was little of the artist in him, he was essentially of the earth, earthly. Such is the best type of that modern product, the Engineer.

And that you may know him when you meet him, I will tell you that he is rather a rare bird. At the present time, probably, no profession contains more "wasters" than electrical engineering; this is because any man who can persuade a mayor and corporation or a chief engineer to give him the job, can take charge of many thousands of horse-power in boilers, and engines and dynamos, with infinite possibilities of damage, and the lives of many men resting on his direction, nerve and knowledge. Those dear men, who scorn to take an interest in their work, are not the breed I mean; nor are those greasy individuals who have arrived, oilcan in hand, from the engine bed: they are practical they say, which means that their minds are a storehouse of undoubtedly useful facts, they have a fairly clear recollection of a great number of engineering possibilities which they have actually witnessed; but, their reasoning powers are undeveloped, and their methods of procedure on new lines are particularly hap-hazard trial and error. The engineer to whom I refer is essentially a man of science; he is mathematical, theoretical, and practical; he holds an engineering degree and has been through the "shops"; he understands both men and materials and the methods of handling them; frequently he is a lonely sort of savage. He knows little of billiards, cards, or dancing; his work precludes him from much intercourse with other men except in business hours; often he is silent and somewhat shy with women; usually he is of good physique and logically minded; his life-work is the pursuit of truth; in the "shops" he learns to file "truly," then he learns to set a thing in the lathe "truly." He tests his finished work carefully to see that it runs "true," and on the test plate he learns to measure accurately, in the drawing office to calculate exactly; he works under, with, and over the working man, and learns to know him better than anyone else; he does not shine at football or cricket, but is often a particularly useful man in a rough and tumble fight, an accomplishment he acquires in his progress through the "shops"; he is an individual; he thinks and sees things as they are, for that is what his work teaches him; he regards things carefully, observing their quality, and speculating on the process of their manufacture; he sums up men quickly. In my opinion, he is only inferior to the sailor.

The æsthetic soul of Darwen was moved, too. "You're making 'em do their damnedest," he observed.

Carstairs nodded. "That's what I like; you know the Yankee definition, 'An engineer is a man who can do for one dollar what any fool can do for two.' It's not bad, but like most Yankee things, it's cheap and incomplete."

"The taint of the cheapness, old chap, is passing from the Americans to us. You can get quality in the States, if you pay for it, now."

"That is so in some things, and to my mind that's the most marked sign of progress; the nation without quality is as a house built upon the sand. The moral effect on the workman who manufactures cheap articles must be disastrous."

"The workmen, dear boy, are the people, and the people are mud. That is the one point upon which I disagree with dear old Nick Machiavelli."

"And probably, as far as I know, the one point on which I agree with him, if he says the people are not mud."

"He does. He quotes a proverb, 'He who builds on the people, builds on mud,' and disagrees with it. Personally, I think the people, the mass, don't matter tuppence. Our officers have made the riff raff of all nations fight like tigers."

"That's not correct. A relative of mine was in Ashantee, and the coast niggers there ran like sheep. They had to give them up as fighting material."

"Perhaps so, but it's only the exception that proves the rule, and that was because we were hampered by sentiment. A coward rightly handled, that is to say, brutally handled, will achieve more than many really brave men."

"I very much doubt that too. I get good results by giving the stokers a drink occasionally."

"Also you curse them occasionally."

"Well, not exactly curse them; you can't listen to all their complaints; some of 'em would never do any work at all if you did."

"Quite so!" They passed on into the engine room. "I observe again, Carstairs, that you make them do their damnedest."

"Again, I explain that I like doing so."

"Your coal costs are always points below mine."

"I am aware of it."

"Yet I bet the chief and old Robinson don't think any the more of you for it."

"I have heard that the chief so far committed himself as to say that you were the best engineer he'd ever had."

"I heard so too, which goes to prove my point. You are paid in this world, not for pleasing yourself, but pleasing others. I believe I could get my costs down to yours, but the chief and Robinson are eminently 'safe' men. I shall never get a shut-down. Old Robinson is on tenter hooks whenever you are on evening shift. 'That chap cuts things too fine,' he told me the other day."

"Did he? Well! he always leaves me severely alone on the evening shift."

"Of course, because if you get a shut-down it will be 'in the unavoidable absence of Mr Robinson or Mr Chief.' See?"

"Yes; I see and comprehend, but don't care."

Darwen's eyes glistened with honest admiration. "There is much of the aboriginal Saxon in you, Carstairs, with your grey eyes and light hair and that big, bull-dog jaw. Rightly, you should worship Thor and Odin, the gods of force. It's absurd for your guv'nor to be a minister of the Christian religion."

"I agree with your last point; we're a family of seamen, really. We worship Neptune."

"Ah! the sea, water, steam, electricity. Hence Jack Carstairs, electrical engineer, seaman twice removed, eh?"

"About that."

"These things are always interesting. It is essential to understand the machine you work with, and the people you live with. To properly grip the bent of a man's mind, it is necessary to know his antecedents. The seaman, we observe, has a natural aptitude for engineering, coupled with great tenacity and self-reliance, a particularly good friend, a just, but particularly unpleasant enemy; a touch of sentiment and superstition, the results of much battering and erratic favours from Father Neptune. The gipsy, on the other——"

"Oh, damn that gipsy," Carstairs flushed an angry red.

"Here we have a most interesting relic of the Berserk rage of the Norseman. If within reach, that gipsy would have a particularly rough time just at this moment."

"Oh, go to the devil, Darwen."

"Thanks very much for the advice, but I will return to the gipsy, who, as I was about to observe, is, on the other hand, naturally a poacher and very vindictive, and will therefore have to be poached, that is to say, captured by stealth which——"

A sudden flash like miniature lightning illuminated the engine room, followed immediately by a loud report.

Carstairs' big jaw tightened. Darwen's eyes glittered with an æsthetic sort of joy. "Breakdown," he observed, "and I'm a spectator."

A circuit fuse had blown, and was instantly followed by a continuous flash and bang of some half dozen fuses, going one after the other, like a straggling volley of small artillery. By an ingenious inter-connection of the network of main supply cables it is arranged that if one circuit fuse goes half a dozen immediately follow suit. This is one of the many diabolical devices on which mains superintendents particularly pride themselves. Carstairs strode up on to the switchboard, very alert, but very cool. He switched out all the switches, replaced the fuses by bigger ones, and switched in again, the switchboard attendant assisting him in a high state of nervous excitement. Now there is a piece of apparatus known as a magnetic automatic circuit breaker. It is carefully designed to come out at the wrong time and stay in at all other times; the good chief of Southville, in the simplicity of his trust in catalogues, had, "for safety," as he expressed it, two of these devices fixed on every machine; when, therefore, Carstairs plugged in again on the heavier fuses, these "safety" devices promptly opened, one after the other, all except one small one, which hung in with a tenacity worthy of a better cause. The station was plunged into instant inky darkness, relieved only by fitful flashes from the commutators of the idle machines, the governor of one of which having stuck, it raced away in a frantic effort to burst its fly-wheel and wreck the engine room; the one small machine, left all alone struggling valiantly with a load four times too big for it, first of all stopped dead till its field died away, then pounded into the work with little spurts and pauses, being helped out with a little juice from the kindly, helpful battery (which was ruining itself in the process). All the boiler feed pumps, fans, and condenser pumps stopped. (The chief, being a wireman, liked to have all the accessories electrically driven.) Pandemonium at once reigned. There was much shouting in the darkness, an engine-driver and a stoker, in their frantic efforts to do something, collided violently, and collapsed on the floor, groaning, to the accompaniment of soft nothings, whispered sweetly to the empty air; the boilers blew off, the steam roared and shrieked out of twelve safety valves like ten thousand fiends let loose; they were blowing off for high steam first of all, and very shortly afterwards for low water as well. In the middle of it all, the alternators (which were unaffected) hummed merrily in the darkness, while the telephone bell screamed an angry protest from an adjacent wall. At such moments the meek and lowly Shift Engineer feels that he is really alive; his only wish is that his chief may happen to drop in and share his happiness with him, or one or two of the councillors; he could accommodate them all with comfortable seats on the safety valves, and the possibility of a quick passage to heaven by the shortest route, straight upwards. Most chiefs are worse than useless on a switchboard during a breakdown; the Shift Engineer, handling the switches every day of his life, sometimes makes mistakes when he is in a hurry; the chief, who handles them once a year, always does; usually his nerves are not as steady as they should be; he wants to know what the Shift Engineer is going to do, and why he doesn't do it at once, then, just to add to the general concert, he plugs in a wrong switch. Councillors generally stand like fools, and wonder what it's all about, or else button-hole the Shift Engineer and demand an immediate explanation. In this case, no one appeared to hinder him, and Carstairs proceeded all alone. Striking a match, he went along the switchboard and pulled out all the circuit switches; the little machine and the battery, pulling together, then raced away joyously and lit up the station with a superabundant light; the switchboard attendant soon altered that, however, and Carstairs went quickly round the boiler house, switching out all the pumps, etc., as very few of them had "no load releases" on, and some that had were tied in; he glanced up at the boiler water gauges as he passed, for he did not want cold water to be suddenly pumped into empty boilers. It took him precisely one minute before he returned to the switchboard and put in the circuit breakers one by one, tieing them in with a piece of insulated wire. "Now!" he said, "we'll start again, more or less in comfort."

He plugged in a circuit and the fuse held though the lights grew dim, and the machines flashed and groaned. The switchboard attendant plugged in another, and the fuse blew in his face. He stood shielding his eyes in a dazed sort of way, the flash had temporarily blinded him. In those days things in central stations were carefully designed to kill and maim as many as possible; men have become more expensive since and a little more care is taken of them, almost as much, in fact, as of the machines. The fuses on this low tension switchboard were accurately adjusted to the level of an average man's eyes and the instrument placed just beneath, as a sort of bait, so that as he took a reading he got the full benefit of the flash and the molten metal flying about if a fuse went, which they did frequently. Carstairs stood up and pulled the switch out, he then replaced the fuse and switched in again. The machine gave a groan, and a fuse at the other end of the board blew simultaneously with the one he had just replaced.

Ejaculating a little word that went in rhyme with 'jam,' he brought the volts down again. "Here, shove in that other fuse, will you? Put a bigger one this time."

The switchboard attendant was dancing round like one possessed, fumbling and twitching. Carstairs replaced his fuse and went along to look at his assistant. He watched him fumbling for a few minutes, then took it out of his hands. "Go and sit down," he said. He finished the job himself. "Stand clear there!" He motioned the switchboard attendant back. "Stand by those engines. Watch the brushes and bring them forward when they spark, far forward. Do you hear?"

"Yes, sir," the engine drivers answered. They stood in expectant attitudes by their respective engines just below the switchboard gallery.

"Alright!" He plugged in, one after the other, ducking his head out of the way of the possible flash. The fuses held. "Bring her up there! Steady, not too quickly! Whoa!" He held up his hand with the fingers outspread, then made a circular motion. "Get round number five," he shouted.

Promptly the driver ran up another engine, and Carstairs put her on. He leaned over the railing and shouted down to Darwen, "I say, would you mind ringing up Farrell and telling him I'm pumping 500 amps extra into something on the Moorfields Road?"

Darwen laughed. "Right you are, old chap."

Farrell was the mains superintendent; it was his pleasant duty to turn out of his bed, round up a gang of navvies, and dig holes in the street all night to ascertain what that "something" was, and remove it. The only consolation a Shift Engineer feels for the arduousness of his existence is that sometimes the mains man (whose life is usually cast in pleasant places) has even a rougher time than he has.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how electricity is "made"—the same as everything else that is any good—by the sweat of men. And as men woo nature, and she reveals her secrets to them, she demands, in return, ever better and better of their best. Man moves, not to peace and plenty, to cowardice and luxury, but to sublime courage and arduous, soulful work, and he may not look back.

Half an hour later, Farrell, a fat, prosperous looking individual, rode up on a bicycle.

"Is it still on?" he asked.

"No, cleared itself some time ago."

"Damn! Just my luck! We shall have the devil's own job to find it now."

The two Shift Engineers laughed. "Sorry it's not raining, Farrell," Darwen observed.

"It's all very well for you chaps to laugh." Farrell went away in disgust.

Soon a little stream of men filtered in; jointers, half awake and surly; navvies, limply, subdued, bearing pick and shovel; it meant overtime for them.

Darwen and Carstairs stood on the doorway and watched them disappear into the night with a hand-cart full of tools and instruments.

They had been gone some time, Carstairs was preparing to go home, when the telephone bell rang violently. It was Farrell, very excited. "What do you think?" he asked. "Got it first shot, just outside that big house at the corner. When the lights went out, the footman was rushing about to get candles and lamps and unearthed a burglar, the burglar they think, skulking in the shrubbery. He bolted at once and the footman chased him all down the road. He'd have got away too, but a paving stone blew up right under his feet and tripped him up. Of course, that's the fault we were looking for."

"Of course; but how do they know he's a burglar?"

"Oh, he had a bludgeon with him and a big knife. One of the windows had been forced, and they found some jewellery in his pockets."

"Have you seen him? What's he like?"

"A rough looking handful, they say, sort of a gipsy, a bit lame in one leg, but he ran like a hare. Strong as a tiger too, nearly strangled the footman before help arrived. The police have noticed him skulking round that neighbourhood for some time."

"Is that so? Well, he's done us a good turn, anyhow." Carstairs was very casual, very slow, there was no emotion whatever in his voice; he said, "good night," and rang off. "Ye gods," he ejaculated to himself. "That's my way home, of course. Wonder what he'll get? Jewellery in his pockets, too, those great big pockets, built for hares and pheasants. 'To what ignoble uses,' etc., as Darwen would say. Still 'living on the country,' I suppose, as they call it in warfare."

About a quarter of an hour afterwards he saw Darwen and Bounce. It was with a keen sense of amusement that he observed them "shadowing" him. He slipped into a gateway and waited unobserved till they approached, and then sprang out on them unawares.

"What the devil are you chaps following me for?" he demanded with mock severity.

"Hang it all, Carstairs, you fool. Play the game! You've probably spoilt the whole show now."

"I'm sorry, but it's not necessary now, the man's in 'quod' for burgling."

"What!"

Carstairs told them the tale.

"Well, I'm blowed, these 'ere police are always shoving their noses into somebody else's business," Bounce growled.

That night Carstairs slept with singular peacefulness.