Glancing about it for a moment, we returned to the engine room and went outside as though about to return to the dock, considering it a hopeless case. Becker followed us, greatly concerned.
"Mr. Becker, it is a plain case of overload; you must lighten the work of your ice machine. You are attempting to make the motor do too much. The engine might be helped a little by readjusting, but that would not be enough," I said, with a sort of hesitating finality, as we both edged away in the direction we had come.
Becker followed and came close up beside us.
"How can I do that?—you see I am so far away up here I can get no one to do such things," he pleaded.
"The only way is to reduce the circulating distance of the ammonia mixture, and then what you have left will cool more space than it does now," I said, actually feeling sure that was the case.
"How can I do that?" he urged, noticing quickly our inclination to leave.
"That might be very easy or it might be quite a job. We could not tell without examining your piping system," I replied as one who had done a big day's work and was thinking more of sleep than of his troubles, particularly since he had not offered us anything to remedy. Becker had enough sense to see this.
He screwed up his face in a way that brought prodigious wrinkles upon his forehead. Then followed an attempt to be patronizingly generous.
"Boys, I'll tell you what I'll do. I know you've been working all day and are tired, but if you will take time enough to look the whole system over and help it some, I will give you five dollars apiece—I must do something or I will have a lot of stuff spoiled—in fact, I have had some spoil already," he ended half to himself.
Hiram glanced at me quickly, and Becker thought that this swift movement to take down his pipe was caused by the lure of his cash offer.