They could find nothing wrong with it. The brass and nickel and enamel glistened as before; the broad bands of the gearing were smooth and intact; the engine seemed in perfect order; the steam indicator proclaimed everything all right about the boiler,—there was apparently not a screw loose about the whole ponderous apparatus; but the knives were poised in midair. Every wheel and rod, lever, band, pulley, arm and crank of the monster was still. There was neither sound nor motion in the mighty mechanism.
“I can’t get her goin’ agin, sorr,” explained the engineer. “But there don’t appear to be anything out of order at all. She’s just naturally balked, so to spake;” and he began, for the twentieth time or so, to peer about amid the complications of the machinery.
“I’ve iled every jint,” said the oiler, as with can in hand, and his grimy, oil-smeared face wrinkled with perplexity, he brushed a superfluous drop from a bearing. “I think the machine is tired. They do be taken that way sometimes, sir. ’Taint in iron an’ steel to work continual, no more’n in flesh an’ blood.”
’Round about the stilled giant the two partners walked, examining every part, stooping under and over each portion of the machinery, in a vain search for the trouble. The hour for closing came,—the big steam whistle sent forth its shrill sound, and the men and women, girls and boys, some two hundred and fifty odd, poured forth from the building, carrying their dinner-pails and baskets, eagerly hurrying homeward to make the most of their few hours’ respite from toil.
“You need not wait, Graves,” said Mr. Hyde, as the foreman still lingered. “We will lock up.”
Graves hesitated a moment. “I beg pardon, sir,” he said, tentatively. “’Tis talked about the shops that you’re contemplating a cut. May I ask if it is true?”
“We’ll talk about that some other time, Graves,” began Horne, but Hyde interrupted, angrily. “If we are,” he said, “we’ll let you know in time. Just now it’s no one’s business but ours, and we will attend to it.”
The foreman drew back, with a flushed face. “I thought I might as well tell you,” he said, sullenly, “that I don’t think the men will stand it. Times are hard; they’re pretty close to bed rock, now, in the matter of wages.”
“That will do, Graves,” said Hyde. “Mr. Horne and I feel ourselves quite able to run our own business without outside advice. If we find we are forced to make a cut, we shall certainly do so. At all events, we do not propose to be dictated to by the men.”
Angry and mortified, the foreman withdrew, and the two capitalists were left alone.