“Neither do I, uncle,” I said. “Why not give up watching the place and let it take its chance?”
“Because we had such an example of the safety of the place and the needlessness of the task?”
“Don’t be hard on me, uncle,” I said quickly. “I meant that it would be better to suffer serious loss than to have someone badly injured in defending the place.”
“You’re right, Cob—quite right,” cried Uncle Jack, slapping the table. “Here, you make me feel like a boy. I believe you were born when you were an old man.”
“Nonsense!” I said, laughing.
“But you don’t talk nonsense, sir. What are you—a fairy changeling? Here, let’s go down to the works.”
“Go down?” I said.
“To be sure. I couldn’t go to bed to-night and sleep. I should be thinking that those two poor fellows were being blown up, or knob-sticked, or turned out. We’ll have them back and leave Piter to take care of the works, and give him a rise in his wages.”
“Of an extra piece of meat every day, uncle?”
“If you had waited a few minutes longer, sir, I should have said that,” he replied, laughing; and taking his hat and stick we went down the town, talking about the curious vibrations and throbbings we could hear; of the heavy rumbling and the flash and glow that came from the different works. Some were so lit up that it seemed as if the windows were fiery eyes staring out of the darkness, and more than once we stopped to gaze in at some cranny where furnaces were kept going night and day and the work never seemed to stop.