So he chose one of them, took him into his house and initiated him into his secrets, while the others carried the dead man away and buried him.
8
The years passed. One day, the people saw Two-Legs stand outside his house and wave his arms and shout aloud. They ran from every side to hear what he wanted.
“I have found it, I have found it,” he shouted.
He took the elders indoors and showed them a great iron cylinder which he had constructed. At the top of the cylinder was a hole which joined another cylinder. In the first cylinder was a piston, also of iron, which fitted so accurately that it could just slide up and down; and it was smeared with oil so that it might slide as easily as possible. At the bottom of the cylinder was the boiler with the water and under the boiler the furnace.
Two-Legs lit a fire in the furnace, the water turned to steam and the steam went up to the top cylinder and lifted the piston right up to the top end of the cylinder. There it escaped through the hole into the cylinder beside it, where it was cooled and became water again and ran down into the boiler and was once more heated by the fire and turned into steam.
But, when the steam had escaped through the hole, the piston slid down again to the bottom of the cylinder, was lifted up by fresh steam and rose and fell again; and this went on as long as the fire burnt in the furnace.
“Look, look!” said Two-Legs; and his eyes beamed with pride and delight. “See, I have caught Steam and imprisoned him in this cylinder. When I make a fire in the furnace, he rises out of the water and lifts the piston to the top of the cylinder. Then he has done my bidding and turns to water in the other cylinder until I once more bid him turn to steam and lift the piston. See ... see ... I have caught Steam and made him my servant, like the ox and the horse and the wind!”
“We see it right enough, Father Two-Legs,” said one of the tribe. “But we don’t understand what you mean to use your servant for. Tell us, was it worth while, on this account, for you to live shut up in your house for so many years, while we have had to dispense with your wise counsel?”