Having put on my blue overalls, dirtied my hands and face, taken out my tool-box, and turned everything in it upside down, I slightly dented the new carburetor, with light taps of a hammer, and dirtied it with blacklead. With a few scrapes of a file I succeeded in giving it the sort of rough look of a newly forged piece of metal.
The train came in. When Lerne touched my shoulder, I was endeavoring, with a great show of effort to screw up a nut which was already perfectly tight.
I turned towards my uncle a face like a coal-heaver’s, putting on as harsh an expression as I could.
“I have just finished,” I muttered; “that was a nice trick of yours, getting people to work all for nothing.”
“Does it work all right again?”
“Oh, yes! I have just tried. You can see the engine is smoking.”
“Do you want the bits I carried away put back into the carburetor?”
“Oh, no! keep them as a remembrance of this happy day, uncle. Come, let us get in, I have had enough of standing about here.”
Frédéric Lerne was annoyed.