CHAPTER XIV
THE IRON AGE
Mr. Mablethorpe was much interested when Philip told him the story in the holidays.
"The Head is all right," he said. "He was only a housemaster in my day, but there was no doubting his quality, even then. But this man Brett is a national disaster. Do you think you can derive any further profit from remaining his disciple?"
No, Philip thought not.
So Philip arrived at Coventry at last, having started some years previously, it may be remembered.
He was enrolled as a premium apprentice at the great works of the Britannia Motor Company. Here he learned to use his fingers and his fists, his muscles and his wits. He passed through the drawing-office, and the erecting-shop, and the repairing-shop. The last interested him most of all, for the Britannia Company repaired other cars besides their own; so here Philip could indulge in the pleasures of variety. He learned to handle cars of every grade and breed. There was the lordly Britannia car itself—the final word in automobilism—with its long gleaming body and six-cylinder engine, so silent and free from vibration that it was possible to balance a half-crown edgewise upon the faintly humming radiator. There were countless other makes—racing-cars, runabout cars, commercial cars, even motor omnibuses. Philip learned to know the inner economy and peculiar ailments of all. There were American cars so cheap that you could not believe it possible that they could be sold at a profit to the maker—until it became necessary to put in repairs or adjustments. Then the whole car seemed to fall to pieces like a house of cards. Exasperated mechanics in the Britannia repairing-shop had a saying that if you wanted to take up the engine-bearings in one of these cars you had to begin by taking down the back axle. There was sufficient truth in this adage to set Philip wondering why such a nation of born engineers should make a point of placing their nuts and bolts in almost inaccessible positions.
"What is the reason of it all?" he enquired one day of a colleague from Pittsburg, who was assisting him to dismantle the greater part of the clutch and flywheel of a cheap American car as a preliminary to adjusting the magneto. "Why do you make cars like jig-saw puzzles?"
The colleague explained. He was a pleasant youth of twenty, with the studiously courteous manners of the American gentleman,—they contrasted quaintly with Philip's shy native brusquerie,—sent by a big-headed father to acquire a little British ballast before assuming the position of second in command at home.