“I dunno’s it will do any harm if he d-does see it run. He can’t find out nothin’. Maybe it’s a good thing he came. Havin’ him sneakin’ round like this may show father he ain’t to be trusted. Eh?”
I could see there was something in that. If we could get it into Mr. Tidd’s head that all the world wasn’t as honest as a prayer-meeting we’d be doing something pretty valuable.
“It’s your business,” I told him, “and you can run it the way you want to.”
He kept peering around cautious, and finally he decided the stranger was hiding in one of two places. One of them was a sort of toolroom right across from where we stood; the other place was a dark cubbyhole under the stairs. He could see all right from either place.
Mr. Tidd was all ready now to begin his trial. He told the engineer to turn on his steam, and we all stood around, almost forgetting to breathe. We could see the steam climbing up in the gauge he’d fixed until it showed there was a hundred pounds of pressure.
“There,” he says, “that’s enough. Now we’re agoin’ to see the Tidd turbine set about its business. There’s no doubt about it; not a mite.”
“Don’t be too confident,” warns Mr. Whiteley.
Mr. Tidd only smiled and turned a little thing that let the steam into his turbine. Pretty soon there came a sort of purring like a cat, only not so loud; maybe it was more like the whirring of an electric fan. We couldn’t see the machine shake or anything, and it didn’t look to me like a thing had happened. But Mr. Tidd was dancing up and down, and saying “I told you so!” and slapping his hip with his big hand, and acting in general like he had gone crazy.
Mr. Whiteley looked at him sort of queer, like he was afraid he really had gone out of his head, and says: “Hold hard; Tidd, get a grip on yourself. She may work yet.”
Mr. Tidd stopped capering and stared at Mr. Whiteley with his mouth open. “May work yet!” he says. “May work yet! Ho, ho! May work yet! Do you hear that hummin’, Mr. Whiteley, and that purrin’? And, Mr. Whiteley, do you see that shaft a-turnin’? Ho, ho! I knew it!”