Success
because I rather liked him. I think oldish men are easier to get on
with than most other kinds of people, don’t you? One understands
quicker what they mean, and what they like.”
“They aren’t often backward in telling you, if you don’t,” Miss Janet
said; “at all events in telling you what they don’t like; certainly
George isn’t. By the way, talking of George, you’d better be careful
about Michael’s going into anything with any friends of his, for it
won’t pay him. Everyone George knows is either a thief or a victim,
or both, none of ’em good folk to deal with. According to him all the
world’s the same—which is stuff and nonsense, just like saying all
butchers are liars because some of them cheat over the weights, if
you don’t keep an eye on them. What I say is, if you go to a thieving
neighbourhood, you must expect to be cheated; but if you don’t, you
needn’t. And as for always expecting to be cheated, that’s ridiculous,
and very effectively prevents you from getting on with anything. Why,
George has not managed to do anything with his invention yet, and
principally, I believe, because he’s so suspicious that he can’t deal
with anyone.”
Nan suggested that Miss Janet was showing herself a little suspicious
too, at all events, of George’s friends.
“That’s because I know the sort,” Miss Janet answered; “there’s
nothing to be made out of any of them, you’d better tell Michael so.”
Nan said she would; and, in pursuance of the promise, inquired about
George and what he had been saying when the brother and sister had gone.
“It was about a man he knows who wants an alteration made to some
winding gear,” Michael said; “a small thing, but rather interesting.”
Nan, remembering Miss Janet’s warning, inquired, “Is there any money in
it?”
Michael thought not. “The man’s a warp dyer,” he said; “that’s a trade
which is very seriously cut now, and he appears to be a poor member of
it.”
“Shall you do what he wants?”
“I can’t without going to see the machines. I don’t know that I could
then; it is a pretty complicated bit of machinery.”
“You can go if you want to.”
“I can’t. How can I? I have just been away a week. This certainly would
be only a matter of a day or two, Friday night to Sunday night would do
it, but I can’t expect your father to let me go again.”
“You can,” Nan said. “It was part of the bargain you were to go when
necessary; you have been less than he expected.”
“Yes,” Michael said doubtfully. “Whose bargain? Yours. I know perfectly
well it is a favour you ask and obtain for me, what I receive from your
father, all of it is.”
“There is no favour,” Nan said; “the bargain was made at the outset,
and father would not only expect but want to abide by it. And I don’t
fancy he feels cheated over it; you know him by this time, do you take
him for a man who would make a bad bargain and be content with it? I
don’t.”
Michael saw there was some truth in that, and, if not entirely
convinced, was partly satisfied. Nan did not think it necessary to
mention the birthday-present incident: she did not consider that in the
light of a favour; nor did her father, she was right there.
It was settled between them that Michael should go to the warp dyer
if he could come to any satisfactory arrangement with him. Nan had
a private conviction that he would go even if the arrangement were
not very profitable, the problem put to him by George had caught his
attention.
And she was right: the arrangement when made was not very satisfactory,
quite likely would work out to be little more than his expenses; still,
he agreed. With Barmister’s consent he undertook to go to the dyeing
works the first Friday evening that he could get away.
Among the many industries which at the present time are not
flourishing, the one, little known except in the circle of allied
trades, of warp dyeing ranks high in misfortune. No doubt there are
warp dyers who do well, and there were in the days when George Foregood
knew Milligen and Freegarten; but Milligen and Freegarten were not
among them now. There had been a time when they, shrewd, hard-dealing
workmen who had risen, had made good profits; when they had saved
some money and spent more, and their families had blossomed forth
as a consequence. But that was past: the profits were gone and the
families too largely; perhaps the latter had blossomed too quickly to
make strong roots. Freegarten was dead; his interest in the concern
was represented by a widow suffering from asthma and a conviction that
she did not get what she ought—both complaints chronic. Milligen still
lived, an old man rather wedded to old ways, but too doggedly devoted
to his business to let it die if a new one would save it—provided
the new one could be applied as a patch, not as regeneration and
reconstruction.
The works were situated in one of the small Midland towns, on the edge
which was least prosperous, and from which richer works and factories
had migrated. There were several sites and buildings to let in the
immediate neighbourhood, possibly owing to the fact that a certain
amount of coal had been taken out in the last century, and the shallow,
disused pits were thought to make the erection of heavy factories in
their vicinity unwise. The only prosperous-looking building near the
dye works was the town council’s power station. That abutted on to
Milligen’s, and, by its size and general appearance of opulence and
conformity to all the latest regulations, made the dyeing works look
older and shabbier than ever.
Inside the place was such as Michael had never come across: many of the
arrangements make-shift and almost amateurish; the plant largely such
as could have been collected from Galhardy’s scrap heap and put up by
a working foreman and a couple of fitters. Old Milligen himself was
responsible for some of the work and much of the patching; he stopped
once on his way through with Michael to calk an especially big leak
in one of the tanks. Michael did not mind that; indeed, he himself
stopped to tighten a steam joint. He could not help it; he could no
more comfortably pass a leaky tap which did not concern him than omit
to work out a problem in ballistics which was not his affair, if either
happened to attract his attention. Possibly it was as a consequence of
this characteristic that he did not think much about the poverty of the
works or the inadequacy of the materials at hand; he was too interested
in the problems there presented. It is true he offered advice in
passing on ways to reduce work in pumping and any other small matter he
observed, much as he would on the faulty draught in a kitchen-stove,
otherwise he did not notice. Without knowing it, he won old Milligen’s
respect as a first-class workman; this before he entered into the
matter he had come to consider.
The matter was to alter the winding machinery so as to enable longer
warps to be dealt with than heretofore; a thing which, if it could be
done, might enable the dyer to hold on and just work at a profit, which
was not possible now. It sounded a small problem, simpler a good deal
than it really was, at least, to the uninitiated; but Michael was aware
there might be considerable difficulties in the way, at all events, of
effecting any great improvement without an outlay beyond Milligen’s
inclination and means.
He spent all Saturday in the works, mastering present methods and
working out various ideas for improvement as they came to him. After
mid-day he had the place very much to himself, which really suited him
better. Old Milligen had to go to a neighbouring town to a funeral,
a solemn social ceremony such as are still sometimes to be met with
in the Midlands, and which, with the return journey, would occupy him
till far into the evening. The workmen had left at the half day, all
except one, a little misshapen handy man called Billy, who followed
Michael about, found bits of scrap when he wanted them, and made
rough contrivances to his direction. In the days at Galhardy’s some
of the finest workmen in that half of England carried out the designs
or variations of designs that the directors’ genius was pleased to
suggest, with the finest materials, and in the shortest time. No
recollection of that occurred to Michael now, he was too absorbed
in the present work to have thoughts for anything else; the which,
perhaps, is one of the most unqualifiedly happy attributes of genius.
But Billy, the handy man, thought of other things; he thought of tea
among them.
“I’d better knock off a minute and see after tea, mister,” he said,
when six was more than past.
And Michael assenting, he disappeared for a little while. When he
returned, it was in a rather breathless state. Michael had a way of
inspiring people who worked with him with a feeling that there was not
a minute to spare.
“It’s a step to the Co-op,” Billy said, as he deposited crusty bread
and stringy ham on an improvised table. “I reckon I’ve done it three
minutes quicker this time ’n it’s been done yet, there and back.”
He rummaged in a cupboard and brought out a black teapot and a still
blacker saucepan and set about boiling water for tea.
“—It’s down beyond the power station,” he explained with some pride.
“The power station?” Michael asked, then inquired casually, “Why did
they put the station out here? I should have thought the other side of
the town would have answered better, and saved something in wiring.”
“Cheaper here,” Billy told him; “got the land for next to nothing.
They put the value down themselves by all their talk of old pits when
someone else was thinkin’ of takin’ over that bit. Not that they’re so
sure to make so much savin’ on it after all; their chimbley’s saggin’
and may cost ’em a bit to shore it up yet.”
Michael had noticed that the chimney was out of the straight. “Rather
seriously too,” he said. “I should have thought it was hardly safe.”
“So’d the council, if it didn’t happen to be their’n,” Billy answered,
grinning; “but they aren’t condemmin’ theirselves, not much—what d’ye
take ’em for?”
“Fools,” Michael said, “if they let it come down; they will find that
a deal more expensive than repairing, or rebuilding either.”
Billy agreed, but from politeness not conviction: in his opinion
buildings and other things were condemned, not because they were
unsafe, but because they did not conform to the council’s by-laws:
could those be avoided the buildings might be expected to stand; when
the council itself was concerned they would naturally be in abeyance.
“That chimbley ain’t comin’ down,” he said, peering into the teapot.
“Why should it?”
“Because it is about seven or eight degrees out of the perpendicular,”
Michael answered.
Billy did not appreciate that as sound reason, but forbore to say so,
merely admitting that Brassey, the head engineer, had his doubts. “He’s
in a bit of a takin’ about it,” he said. “It’s sottled some more lately
on the hither side they do say, and he’s fetched the manager back from
the seaside to have a look at it; a chap as works there was tellin’
me yesterday. He was comin’ for a pow-wow to-day, Brassey would have
him though it is Saturday. But what’s the good o’ that, I’m askin’? It
’on’t do nothin’; it’s them old pits as does it, and who’s going to
account for them?”
“Why build on an old pit?” Michael asked. “It seems a little idiotic to
attempt to save money that way.”
“They didn’t go to do it,” Billy told him. “They suspicioned there was
pits hereabouts, but they didn’t reckon to hit one for their chimbley.”
“Surely they have a map of the district?”
Billy shook his head. “Old pits ain’t mapped, not the very old ’uns.
They hadn’t no councils those days, all the better for them! Parties
howked out the coal where they found it, and shut down when there