Peter Masters talked much of events, of material things, of himself, but never of mankind in general. He spoke of no friends, or neighbours: he appeared to be served by machines, to stand alone in life, unconscious of his isolation. They played billiards in the evening and the host had an easy victory, and gave Christopher a practical lesson in the one game he had found time to master.
“I’ve work to do. Breakfast to-morrow at 8 sharp. You are going to Birmingham with me.”
No question about it or pretence of asking his visitor’s wishes. Christopher did not resent that, but he resented his growing inability to resist. He flung 234 open the windows of his room and looked out. Eastward there was a glow in the sky over the great sleepless city: northward a still nearer glow from a foundry, he thought, but westward the parkland was silvered with moonlight and black with shadows, which under the groups of chestnuts seemed like moving shapes.
He leant out far and the cold night air shivered by. That was familiar and good to feel, but the glare northward caught his eyes again, and held him fascinated. It rose and fell, now blushing softly against a velvet sky, now flaring angrily to heaven. It seemed to quiver with voices that were harsh and threatening. It filled Christopher’s heart with unreasonable horror against which he struggled in vain, as with the dim terror of a stranger. At last he closed the window and shut it out.
“I don’t like it,” said Christopher half aloud. “It’s all right, it’s only a foundry, but I hate it.”
With that he went to bed and in the dark the dance of the fires flickered before his eyes.
The next few days were spent in gathering fresh impressions and disentangling bewildering experiences, and in small encounters with the unanswerable will of his host.
He was taken to the great offices in Birmingham, and the wonderful system by which each vast machine was worked was explained to him. He was even privileged to sit with the great man in the inner sanctum and copy letters for him, though he was summarily turned out to see the sights of the great city when a visitor was announced. He explored the depths of the coal mines and finally spent a long morning at the foundry whose nightly glare still haunted his dreams. It was the latter sight that Peter Masters evidently expected would interest him most, for here were employed the most marvellous and most 235 complicated modern machinery, colossal innovations and ingenious labour-saving inventions in vast orderly buildings; the complex whole obedient to an organisation that left no item of power incomplete or wasted. But Christopher gave but half his mind to all he was shown, the other half was on those still stranger machines, the grimy, brutal-looking workmen toiling in the hot heart of the place, the white-faced stooping forms on the outskirts. They eyed him aslant as they worked, for visitors were rare occurrences. He asked questions concerning them and received vague answers, and a new machine was offered for inspection.
Fulner, the young engineer who had been told off to show him round, understood what was expected of him and did his duty. Masters himself, though he accompanied them, apparently put himself also in Fulner’s hands; he took no particular interest in the work, but his eye followed every movement of Christopher’s and his ear strained to his questions. Christopher noticed that none but heads of departments paid any attention to the owner’s presence, and he would have thought him unknown but for a word or two he caught as he lingered for a last look at a particularly fascinating electric lathe.
“Thinks he’s master,” grinned one man, with a shrug, towards the retreating form.