He was young and romantic, and the Negapatam’s whistle had excited his imagination. Sometimes he felt the steamer’s whistles called him from the drawing-office and the smokey yard. He pictured the Mariposa pushing up a big calm river and the muddy wave she threw off lapping the mangrove roots. He saw dazzling sunbeams pierce the forest and touch tangled creepers and orchids on the rotting trunks. The little boat stemmed the yellow flood and her boiler steamed as the company’s boiler ought to steam.
When the boat had run her trial Kit was going for a holiday, and he saw another picture. Evelyn, carrying a fishing rod, balanced on a ledge by a sparkling pool. Her clothes harmonized with the lichen on the stones, and her slender body was posed like a Greek statue. The rod bent, and Kit, in the water, held the landing-net.
The picture melted, and another got distinct. Evelyn occupied a hammock under the big oaks at Netherhall; Kit lay in the grass, and in the shade water splashed. Sometimes he joked and Evelyn smiled; sometimes he talked about the Mariposa’s boiler. When one talked about things like that Evelyn was not bored. Kit sensed in her a practical vein, and she knew he must make his mark. Steamship whistles did not call Evelyn, but Kit smiled, a happy smile. Her part was to make home beautiful, and he was willing for her to curb his romantic extravagance.
Kit straightened his bent shoulders. Unless he got on his feet, he would soon be asleep, and he put the plans in the cupboard and locked the door. When he got his hat the watchman came in and pushed a peg into the clock.
“You’re going, Mr. Carson! I s’pose nobody else was in the office since I was round?”
“I was alone. Why do you want to know?”
“Mr. Robbins’s orders was, if anybody but you and Mr. Blake came back at night, I must report.”
Kit smiled and went down the steps. Old Robbins used some caution, but he ought to know his men. All the same, since the boiler’s advantages could not be patented, perhaps caution was justified.
In the morning Kit carried the plans to the head draftsman’s table, and for a time Robbins measured and calculated. Then he said: “You have used a longer radius for the intake tube’s curve. In fact, to some extent, you have gone back to our original notion.”
“That is so,” Kit agreed. “The water must circulate freely.”