"It functions, Monsieur. A little rust—nothing serious. The torrent from the Bec de l'Empereur runs the dynamo; the spring flows full. Listen!"
We listened. Through the purring of the dynamo the bubbling melody of the famous mineral spring was perfectly audible.
"How many bottles have we?" I asked.
"In the unopened cases a hundred thousand. In odd lots, quart size, twenty thousand more."
"Corks? Boxes?"
"Plenty."
"Labels? Straw?"
"Bales, Monsieur."
"And all the machinery works?"
For answer he picked up a quart bottle and placed it in a porcelain cylinder. Then he threw a switch; the bottle was filled automatically, corked, labeled, sheathed in straw and deposited in a straw-lined box.