CHAPTER VIII
ASSAULT AND BATTERY
In the engine house a small, hump-backed man sat picking over the masses of wet rag brought to him by Henry Barefoot from the boilers. For, despite the sorters and the magnet, enemies to paper still lurked in the sodden rag, and the little man ran the sloppy stuff through his fingers, extracting from time to time fragments of rubber, whalebone, pearl, and other substances.
The engine house was a lofty chamber on two floors, with windows that faced the west. Here, Ned Dingle reigned, and half a dozen men worked under him. Much happened to the rag before it came to Ned, for after its final picking, it was washed again, and broken before the beater turned it into pulp. When the little hump-backed man had passed it, the rag was set revolving with water in oval, lead-lined breakers. On one side the washer, like a steamer’s paddle-wheel, churned in a bladed barrel, so that the rag was not only cleaned again, but also torn to the smallest fragments; on the other side a drum of brass wire sucked away the dirty water, while from the upper end clean water was perpetually spurting in. Round and round the rag revolved for three hours, by which time its character had changed entirely. It was, in fact, rag no more, but a substance like curds: “half stuff,” or rag transformed and half-way to its final stages.
From the breakers the pulpy mass left the engine house for a time, and sojourned in the bleaching tanks beneath. It flowed down through pipes to a subterranean chamber, where the air was sharp with the smell of chemicals, and twelve great, gaping wells ranged round a narrow passage way. Here came the “half stuff” to repose on beds of Delabole slate, and endure the operations of the bleach for half a day or more. Then the liquid was drained off, the snow-white, solid masses forked out on to little trolleys, and so returned to Ned Dingle in the engine house. Again it revolved until the bleach was thoroughly washed out of it, for it is a principle of great paper making that the less chemicals, the better the pulp; and now perfected, washed, broken and bleached, the material came to the beater for final dissection.
The beaters’ engines were oval in form and resembled the breakers. They stood upon the lower floor of the engine house, and each communicated directly with the breaker above it, and the vat room far beneath. From final washing, the pulp flowed directly to Mr. Dingle, and, as before, revolved, and was churned by a paddle-wheel set with fine knives. Ned controlled it, and on his judgment depended the quality of the pulp that would presently flow down to Kellock, Knox, and the other vatmen.
He was explaining the process to a young man, who had just been promoted to his assistant from the breakers above.
“It’s got to meet every test that experience can bring against it, Jacob,” he said. “And if it did not, I should mighty soon hear of it.”
He regulated the churning wheel with a footplate, and presently, satisfied that the mass, which was now like fine cream after revolving in the beating tank for many hours, had reached perfection, Ned took a test to satisfy himself.