“Still uttering?” said the Cat. “Never mind, here’s the Miller coming to shut you off. Ye-es, I have known—four—or five is it?—and twenty leaders of revolt in Faenza…. A little more babble in the dam, a little more noise in the sluice, a little extra splashing on the wheel, and then——”
“They will find that nothing has occurred,” said the Black Rat. “The old things persist and survive and are recognised—our old friend here first of all. By the way,” he turned toward the Wheel, “I believe we have to congratulate you on your latest honour.”
“Profoundly well deserved—even if he had never—as he has—-laboured strenuously through a long life for the amelioration of millkind,” said the Cat, who belonged to many tile and outhouse committees. “Doubly deserved, I may say, for the silent and dignified rebuke his existence offers to the clattering, fidgety-footed demands of—er—some people. What form did the honour take?”
“It was,” said the Wheel bashfully, “a machine-moulded pinion.”
“Pinions! Oh, how heavenly!” the Black Rat sighed. “I never see a bat without wishing for wings.”
“Not exactly that sort of pinion,” said the Wheel, “but a really ornate circle of toothed iron wheels. Absurd, of course, but gratifying. Mr. Mangles and an associate herald invested me with it personally—on my left rim—the side that you can’t see from the mill. I hadn’t meant to say anything about it—or the new steel straps round my axles—bright red, you know—to be worn on all occasions—but, without false modesty, I assure you that the recognition cheered me not a little.”
“How intensely gratifying!” said the Black Rat. “I must really steal an hour between lights some day and see what they are doing on your left side.”
“By the way, have you any light on this recent activity of Mr. Mangles?” the Grey Cat asked. “He seems to be building small houses on the far side of the tail-race. Believe me, I don’t ask from any vulgar curiosity.”
“It affects our Order,” said the Black Rat simply but firmly.
“Thank you,” said the Wheel. “Let me see if I can tabulate it properly. Nothing like system in accounts of all kinds. Book! Book! Book! On the side of the Wheel towards the hundred of Burgelstaltone, where till now was a stye of three hogs, Mangles, a freeman, with four villeins, and two carts of two thousand bricks, has a new small house of five yards and a half, and one roof of iron and a floor of cement. Then, now, and afterwards beer in large tankards. And Felden, a stranger, with three villeins and one very great cart, deposits on it one engine of iron and brass and a small iron mill of four feet, and a broad strap of leather. And Mangles, the builder, with two villeins, constructs the floor for the same, and a floor of new brick with wires for the small mill. There are there also chalices filled with iron and water, in number fifty-seven. The whole is valued at one hundred and seventy-four pounds…. I’m sorry I can’t make myself clearer, but you can see for yourself.”