Storm in a Teacup

by Eden Phillpotts

Two hand-bowls, or dippers, he lifted, scooped up a few ounces of the pulp, then mixed it with pure water, and flung the liquid backwards from one dipper to the other, pouring off and adding fresh water until what was left in his bowl resembled water barely stained with soap. The pulp was now so diluted that it needed sharp eyes to see anything in the water at all; but Dingle, taking it to the window, set it slowly dribbling away over the edge of the bowl, and as it flowed, the liquid revealed tiny fragments and filaments all separate, and as fine as spider’s thread. The spectacle of these attenuated fibres of cotton told the beaterman that his engine was ready and the pulp sufficiently fine. The masses of rag, once linen and lace, and every sort of textile fabric woven of cotton, had become reduced to its limit of tenuity, and was now far finer stuff than in the cotton pod of its creation. It had been beaten into countless millions of fibrils, long and short, and all so fine as to need sharpest scrutiny of human eye to distinguish them.

Jacob—a future beaterman—followed Ned’s operations closely; then he made a test himself and watched the cotton gossamer flow over the edge of his bowl.

“And next week,” declared Ned, “something finer still has got to be made—so fine that I shall have to borrow a pair of spectacles to see it—good as my eyes are. And that’s the pulp for the Exhibition moulds. It’s to be a record—such paper as never before was made in the world. But this is just ordinary, first class rag pulp—stuff that will last till doomsday if properly handled. Now it’s going down to Knox’s vat.”

He sent a boy to the vat room to warn Philander that a re-inforcement was about to descend. Then he sought a square shaft in the corner of the engine house, took off the lid and revealed an empty, lead-lined box, having six holes at the bottom. Each was securely stopped and all communicated with the great chests that held the pulp for the paper makers below.

He opened one hole, drew a valve from the beating engine and allowed it slowly to empty into the box. The white mass sank away out of it; there was a gurgle and a splash of air from the valve as the engine emptied; while with a wooden rake Ned scraped the last of the pulp to the aperture, whence it ran to the box above the chests in the vat room.

“No. 4 chest is being filled, so it’s No. 4 hole I’ve opened in the box,” he explained. “Now it’s all run down very quick you see, and my beater is empty.”

Then the breaker above disgorged another load of “half stuff” into the beater, and after he had used a beating roll, he set the paddle-wheel going again and the new consignment revolved on its way.

Ned took a keen interest in his work and though he might be casual and easy-going in all other affairs of life, it was clear that he could be serious enough over the operations of the beater. He was very thorough and never left anything to chance. Opportunity for initiative did not enter into his labours; but the hard and fast lines of perfection he followed with keen application, and it was his fair boast that he had never sent bad pulp to the vatmen. Though a mechanical calling, Ned did not approach it in a mechanical spirit. It was his particular gift and privilege to feel a measure of enthusiasm in the craft, and he prided himself upon his skill.

Novelty now awaited him, for the pulp presently to be made would differ in quality from the familiar material. The beating it to an impalpable fineness would be his work. The pulp was also to be dyed with new tinctures, not used until now.

For not only snowwhite material descended to the vat room. The dyeing was a part of Mr. Dingle’s operation in many cases, and the various colours of foreign currency papers went into the stuff during its sojourn in the beaters.