“But we can help him; we can experiment at the vat and in the beating engine. We can go one better in the pulp; and the stroke counts at the vat. I reckon your stroke will be invaluable to work the pulp into every cranny of such moulds as I’m thinking about.”
“I’ll do my best; so will Dingle; but how many men in England are there who could make such moulds as these to-day?”
“Three,” replied Trenchard. “But I want better moulds. I’m hopeful that Michael Thorn of London will rise to it. I go to see him next week, and we put in a morning at the British Museum to find a statue worthy of the occasion.”
“I can see a wonderful thing in my mind’s eye already,” declared Kellock.
“Can you? Well, I never can see anything in my mind’s eye and rest content for an hour, till I set about the way to see it with my body’s eye.”
“We all know that, Mr. Trenchard.”
“Here’s my favourite,” declared the other, holding up a massive head of Abraham Lincoln. “Now that’s a great work in my judgment and if we beat that in quality, we shall produce a water-mark picture worth talking about.”
“You ought to show all these too,” said Jordan Kellock.
“I shall—if I beat them; not if they beat me,” replied the other. “I wanted you to see what my father and grandfather could do, so that you may judge what we’re up against. But they’re going to be beaten at Dene, or else I’ll know the reason why.”
“It’s good to see such things and worth while trying to beat them,” answered the vatman.