“You do not understand,” said Two-Legs. “Go away and come back again this day twelvemonth: then you shall see what I use my new servant for. When I have shown you, you can continue the work yourselves. I tell you, so great is the new servant’s strength and cleverness that, if you learn to use him properly, the whole face of the earth will be changed.”
Thereupon he went into the house and shut his door.
He sat contentedly and looked at his new engine:
“Ho, ho, dear Steam!” he said. “I have you now. I can call you forth and turn you off. I can make you strong and I can make you weak. The more fire, the more water, the more steam. And you must always remain inside the cylinder and do my bidding. I can make the cylinder long and I can make it short; I can make the piston heavy and I can make it light: you must needs draw it up and down, my good Steam.”
“You call me good,” said the steam. “On the day when I burst the mountain and destroyed all your land, you called me bad. Now I told you that I was neither good nor bad. I am what I am. You have caught me and, if you can use me, then use me!”
Two-Legs laughed merrily and rubbed his hands. He lit the furnace and poured water into the boiler and sat and watched how the piston slid up and down:
“Yes, what shall we use you for now?” he said. “Shall we put you to the carriage instead of the horse? I think you might get along the road at a very different pace. Shall I use you to draw the ship? Then you can run close to the wind and need not care a pin for him. Shall I let you turn the stones in the mill?... Oh, there are a thousand things that you must do for me!”
Two-Legs put out the fire. Then he fastened a rod to the piston and to the rod he joined another, which was fastened to the axle of a wheel. He lit the fire under the boiler and, behold, the piston went up and down, the rod moved and the wheel whirred!
He made a carriage, put the whole steam-engine on the carriage and connected the rod with the wheel. He himself stood at the back of the carriage, where the furnace was, lit the fire and heaped on coal. The wheels turned and the carriage ran along the road.