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Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) and Its
Applications
The Metal Oxides Series Edited by Ghenadii Korotcenkov
Forthcoming Titles
G
Metal Oxides: Powder Technologies, Yarub Al-Douri (ed.), 9780128175057
G
Palladium Oxides Material Properties, Synthesis and Processing Methods, and
Applications, Alexander M. Samoylov, Vasily N. Popov, 9780128192238
G
Metal Oxides for Non-volatile Memory, Panagiotis Dimitrakis, Ilia Valov, 9780128146293
G
Metal Oxide Nanostructured Phosphors, H. Nagabhushana, Daruka Prasad, S.C. Sharma,
9780128118528
G
Nanostructured Zinc Oxide, Kamlendra Awasthi, 9780128189009
G
Metal Oxide-Based Nanostructured Electrocatalysts for Fuel Cells, Electrolyzers, and
Metal-Air Batteries, Teko Napporn, Yaovi Holade, 9780128184967
G
Multifunctional Piezoelectric Oxide Nanostructures, Sang-Jae Kim, Nagamalleswara Rao
Alluri, Yuvasree Purusothaman, 9780128193327
G
Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) and Its Applications, Francesco Parrino, Leonardo Palmisano,
9780128199602
G
Transparent Conductive Oxides, Mirela Petruta Suchea, Petronela Pascariu, Emmanouel
Koudoumas, 9780128206317
G
Metal Oxide-Based Nanofibers and Their Applications, Vincenzo Esposito, Debora
Marani, 9780128206294
G
Metal Oxides in Nanocomposite-Based Electrochemical Sensors for Toxic Chemicals,
Alagarsamy Pandikumar, Perumal Rameshkumar, 9780128207277
G
Metal-Oxides for Biomedical and Biosensor Applications, Kunal Mondal, 9780128230336
G
Metal Oxide-Carbon Hybrid Materials, Muhammad Akram, Rafaqat Hussain, Faheem K
Butt, 9780128226940
Published Titles
G
Colloidal Metal Oxide Nanoparticles, Sabu Thomas, Anu Tresa Sunny, Prajitha V,
9780128133576
G
Cerium Oxide, Salvatore Scire, Leonardo Palmisano, 9780128156612
G
Tin Oxide Materials, Marcelo Ornaghi Orlandi, 9780128159248
G
Metal Oxide Glass Nanocomposites, Sanjib Bhattacharya, 9780128174586
G
Gas Sensors Based on Conducting Metal Oxides, Nicolae Barsan, Klaus Schierbaum,
9780128112243
G
Metal Oxides in Energy Technologies, Yuping Wu, 9780128111673
G
Metal Oxide Nanostructures, Daniela Nunes, Lidia Santos, Ana Pimentel, Pedro
Barquinha, Luis Pereira, Elvira Fortunato, Rodrigo Martins, 9780128115121
G
Gallium Oxide, Stephen Pearton, Fan Ren, Michael Mastro, 9780128145210
G
Metal Oxide-Based Photocatalysis, Adriana Zaleska-Medynska, 9780128116340
G
Metal Oxides in Heterogeneous Catalysis, Jacques C. Vedrine, 9780128116319
G
Magnetic, Ferroelectric, and Multiferroic Metal Oxides, Biljana Stojanovic,
9780128111802
G
Iron Oxide Nanoparticles for Biomedical Applications, Sophie Laurent, Morteza
Mahmoudi, 9780081019252
G
The Future of Semiconductor Oxides in Next-Generation Solar Cells, Monica Lira-Cantu,
9780128111659
G
Metal Oxide-Based Thin Film Structures, Nini Pryds, Vincenzo Esposito, 9780128111666
G
Metal Oxides in Supercapacitors, Deepak Dubal, Pedro Gomez-Romero, 9780128111697
G
Solution Processed Metal Oxide Thin Films for Electronic Applications, Zheng Cui,
9780128149300
G
Transition Metal Oxide Thin Film-Based Chromogenics and Devices, Pandurang Ashrit,
9780081018996
Metal Oxides Series
Edited by
Francesco Parrino
Department of Industrial Engineering,
University of Trento, Trento, Italy
Leonardo Palmisano
“Schiavello-Grillone” Photocatalysis Group,
Department of Engineering, University of
Palermo, Palermo, Italy
Series Editor
Ghenadii Korotcenkov
Department of Theoretical Physics,
Moldova State University, Chisinau, Moldova
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ISBN: 978-0-12-819960-2
List of contributors xv
About the series editor xix
About the editors xxi
Preface to the series xxiii
Preface to the volume xxvii
Index 681
List of contributors
"That won't do, old chap, we must have the engine, can't get on without
it much longer. You know that better than I do."
"Well, I have nothing further to suggest, unless you test the engine and
pass it yourself."
"Quite so."
"My dear chap," Darwen beamed with the best of good nature. "Think
what it means! In your position I'd have done it. I've got past that now.
You're getting £250, or you will be next month, and just waiting to step into
my job when I leave, which I can assure you won't be long. Don't be an ass,
Carstairs. I'm going to have that engine."
"Look here, Darwen, I'm not going to do your dirty work. I'm sick and
tired of you and your roguery. You're a liar, and a cheat and a thief. God
only knows if you aren't worse!"
"No."
Carstairs laughed. "You're calling me a fool," he said, "but I'm not a bit
offended. I know it's the reflection entirely of your own intellectual
shortcoming. What do you think Dr Jameson would say? What would the
council? the whole blooming town say? If I told them I'd got the sack
because I refused to pass an engine which wasn't up to specification. I
imagine, Mr Darwen, you're prepared to reconsider your decision, for a
start, eh? just for a start."
"By Jove, Carstairs, I'm proud of you, and it's all my teaching, every bit.
'Ye ponderous Saxon swingeth ye sledge hammer.'" Darwen smiled like the
rising sun in June. "God! what glorious weather we're getting. Look at the
sky, Carstairs! Did you ever see a sky like that in October?"
"The sky's alright. I should have thought the the earth beneath your feet
had more concern with you." He pointed downwards with his finger. He
was feeling rather well pleased with himself.
"Well done, Carstairs. The earth is good. I adore the earth, that is nature.
Earth, Ocean, Air, beloved brotherhood. It's a pity you don't ready poetry,
Carstairs." He smiled, genially.
Carstairs remained silent, impassive. He watched him as he watched an
engine when he tested it; looking at everything, expecting anything.
"Couldn't say."
"Ah! I thought you were an observer of these things. It's rather a pity.
Still, I'll proceed. I touched his tail with my stick, and—you know the usual
result—he promptly waggled it off and left it on the footpath while the rest
of him disappeared in the long grass. Now the slow-worm thought that was
smart, but it was really only silly. I didn't want his tail, or the rest of him; he
thought I did, he was used to people who did, he thought I was a common
or garden fool. So do you, Carstairs. You can go right now to Dr Jameson or
to the devil himself; in fact, you can do what you damn well please. I have
no further use for you, and that being the case, I don't intend to carry you
around on my back any longer."
"Very well." Carstairs turned without another word and opened the door.
"Stop a minute."
Carstairs turned.
"No, thanks."
"Ah! the strange uncouth ways of the Saxon. However, it doesn't matter.
You don't want to hit a fellow when he's down, Carstairs?"
"Ah! the incomprehensible Saxon. You wouldn't see a poor devil with
an old mother and a wife and family chucked out on the streets, or sent to
quod?"
"What are you pulling my leg about now? You haven't got a wife and
family."
"Me! Oh dear, no. I'm not down. Ha! ha! You can't touch me, old chap. I
haven't passed the engine. As a matter of fact I told the contractor's man
yesterday I was afraid she wouldn't do, and I drafted a letter to the firm,
telling them so. It's not sent yet; the clerks are awaiting my signature to the
typed copy."
"Then what have you been playing all this game about?"
"This is the game of life, dear boy, a sort of universal high jinks. Let me
explain. I'm going to have that engine, and if you kick up a row, either
before or after, you won't touch me. All that will happen will be that half a
dozen poor fools, who are at present earning a precarious living as tools,
tools of the inexpensive order, will be chucked aside."
"No, thanks."
"You're damned hard, you know, Carstairs. Then there's the contractor's
man there. He'd get the bullet, and two or three fitters also. Possibly a clerk
or two and my chief assistant would go to quod, even the honest and highly
virtuous Mr Carstairs, son of the vicar of Chilcombe, who would die, with
his wife, broken-hearted."
"That'll do, Darwen. I'll go and see Dr Jameson and a solicitor at once."
"Carstairs, the mater's taken a fancy to you, and I'll admit you appeal to
me more than any man I've ever met. So damned ponderous. Your moment
of inertia must be simply enormous. Isn't it possible to save you in your
own despite." He touched an electric bell. An office boy appeared.
"Ask Mr Slick if he'll come up here a minute, will you, please." Darwen
was invariably excessively polite, even to the minutest and most sub-
divided portions of humanity.
"Slick and I will endeavour to show you, Carstairs, that you've got 'no
case,' as I believe they say in law."
Mr Slick appeared.
"Ah! Here you are!" Darwen shook hands cordially. "Mr Carstairs is not
satisfied with your engine, Mr Slick. Won't come up to specification, he
says."
"Yes. I think I understand the Shift Engineer to say he was present also.
The fact is I've written to your firm expressing approval of the engine, on,
as I understand, Mr Carstairs' advice. Now there seems to be some hitch.
However, we will come down and see to that presently, Mr Slick. Thanks
very much for coming up."
Darwen's eyes were wide with admiration. "Ye gods! Ye gods!" he said.
"Look here, Carstairs, you and I must continue to be pals, I'll share with
you. When I came here, the councillors were sharing the 'profits,' and old
Jones was getting an occasional five quid. Now, I get the profits and the
councillors get the occasional five quid. See? Will you go halves? And I tell
you halves is something pretty good, too!"
"But I will! I'll tell you what I'll do. If you chuck this sharp practice and
send those engines back, we'll make this place pay well, and the council
shall give us our whack."
Darwen was thoughtful for a minute. "They won't do it," he said. "The
fool in the street, the voter, whose mind runs in shillings per week, wouldn't
let them. In municipal work it doesn't pay to be honest."
Carstairs sat down with a heavy plump into a chair. "You ought to be
put in an asylum, not in prison," he said, wearily. "I wonder if I gave you a
good hammering if it would do any good."
"Not a bit, old chap. Besides, I rather doubt your ability to do it."
They regarded each other with measuring eyes. Carstairs allowed his
gaze to roam slowly over the thick, clean neck, the well-developed, lissom-
looking shoulders, and last of all rested on the clean-cut, patrician face with
the small, neat moustache just shading the well-moulded, full red lips, quite
closed; and the brilliant, clear eyes that sparkled with a bold, clear
intelligence. They were two splendid animals, these two young men,
spotlessly clean, well groomed.
"I tell you what, Darwen. I'll fight you now, to a finish, whether you
keep those engines or whether I get the sack."
"Thanks, old chap, that's a new form of the gamble of our early youth
—'heads, I win; tails, you lose.' But we shall come to a scrap all the same
some day, I know."
"That's so; I'm going away to open the campaign now." Carstairs picked
up his hat. "I'll call for my screw, Monday. By the way, I suppose it will be
at the increased rate?"
"It's all in the game, you know. No need to lose your temper over it."
"Good, jolly good. I see I'm converting you. By Jove, you shall have it."
"Thanks. Good-bye."
"I say!"
"Hullo!"
"Not at all, old chap. I want a run for my money, that's all."
CHAPTER XVII
"Oh!" she said. "Has Mr Darwen—" she stopped; she wanted to know
all about it, but did not know how to ask.
"Mr Darwen has sacked me, yes," he said; Carstairs was a most
unsatisfactory subject for a woman to tackle, he left so much to the
imagination. "I shall leave about three o'clock on Monday afternoon," he
explained, as a conclusion to the subject. He produced his drawing board
and settled down to do a good afternoon's work on his slowly evolving
patent. As he bent low over the board, scrutinizing some fine detail work,
his eye caught an extra pin-hole on the edge of the clean white board. He
dug the point of his pencil thoughtfully into it. "That's funny," he said to
himself. "I don't remember to have done that." He looked around at the
three other corners and saw pin-holes in all of them. It was a new board and
he had never had a sheet of paper on it of the size indicated by the pin-
holes. "Some devil has been taking a tracing of this, our esteemed friend,
Darwen, or his agents, no doubt." He leaned back in his chair in deep
thought for a time, then he bent forward and set to work vigorously again.
He was still busy when the landlady's daughter brought in his tea. He
looked up casually and caught her eye bent on his work with extreme
interest. "Good evening, Miss Hughes," he said.
Carstairs' face was like the Sphinx. "I'm going up to London to-morrow.
Would you mind letting me have breakfast at half-past six? I shall come
back by the eleven twenty, but I've got a very important piece of work here
I want to finish before I go, so please don't let me be disturbed for the rest
of the evening."
"Certainly, Mr Carstairs. Half-past six, and I'll see no one disturbs you."
"Thanks very much." Carstairs regarding her steadily with his calm,
inquiring eyes, caught a gleam in hers that she did not want to be seen; he
gave no sign, and she went away quite oblivious of the fact that he had read
her like an open book.
Next day he went off to London and saw his lawyer brother; they talked
over his case against Darwen, and his brother very quickly decided that he
had "no case." So Carstairs returned, and in the stillness of the wee sma'
hours he examined the drawing again, and found, as he expected, four more
pin-holes. He did not smile; when in company his mirth was seldom
excessive, when alone, his features never for one second relaxed their
attitude of calm seriousness. He replaced the drawing board in its position,
leaning against the wall behind the piano, and went to bed.
The following Monday he called at the office for his month's pay. He
waited at the little shutter that the men were paid at, while the office boy
went to fetch a clerk who fetched another clerk, who consulted with the first
clerk, and called a third clerk and sent the office boy for a book and a pen,
then they all three consulted together again and reprimanded the office boy
before handing the cheque through the little shutter. Which entire rigmarole
was the outcome of insufficient work, and too sufficient pomposity. While
Carstairs waited, Darwen opened the door of his office.
"Hullo, old chap, come inside. Here, Morris, bring that cheque along
with you." He held out his hand.
Carstairs ignored it. "Thanks, I won't stay, I'm just going off to
Chilcombe."
"Thanks very much. I should like to see your mother, but I'm afraid I
can't stop this evening."
The clerk brought out the cheque. Darwen took it and, glancing over it,
handed it on to Carstairs. "There you are, old chap. I'm sorry it's the last."
Carstairs took it. "Thanks," he said. "Good-bye," and turning on his heel
he went out for the last time.
Darwen watched him through the window as he walked down the street
with his long swinging stride. "The reason, personified, of why England
owns half the earth," he said, to himself. "And equally the reason that she
doesn't own the whole of it," he added, thoughtfully.
He lay back in his chair and gazed far into the future, mental pictures in
many colours shaped themselves in kaleidoscopic procession across the
white expanse of ceiling. For half an hour he sat thus, then sitting suddenly
upright, and drawing in his outstretched legs, he plunged back into the
present among the papers on his table.
Jack was speaking, and they all listened attentively. "When a German
ex-gasfitter, with a little elementary arithmetic and less electrical catalogue
information, talks to me as though he were a miniature Kaiser and I the last-
joined recruit of his most unsatisfactory regiment, and then refuses me a
switchboard attendant's job on technical grounds, then, I admit, my
thoughts lightly turn to robbery with violence as a recreation and means of
livelihood. He'd have liked me to say 'yes, sir,' and 'no, sir,' and 'please, sir,'
and touch my cap and grovel in the dirt. I'd see him in hell first."
"I always said, Hugh, you ought to have put that boy in the Service," the
sailor interjected, quite seriously.
The old vicar smiled, somewhat sorrowfully. "I might say that you are
possessed of a devil," he said, with quiet humour. "Your engineering
experience ought to tell you that it's no use ramming your head against a
brick wall."
"I tell you, Hugh! the initial mistake was in not putting that boy into the
Service; though there's a maxim there that promotion comes 80 per cent. by
chance, 18 per cent. by influence, and 2 per cent. by merit."
"That's rot, you know, unless you mean to say that 18 per cent. of the
men in the Service are snivelling cheats."
The sailor was thoughtful. "There are some cheats in the Navy, but not
many; as a rule it's not the man's own fault that he is promoted by influence.
At the same time you can't afford to get to loo'ard of your skipper, much
depends on one man's word, but that man is usually a——"
"Well! 'an officer and a gentleman' they call him. The Service would
have suited you."
"My dear uncle, I have all respect for the Service, but at the same time I
should not wish to be anything but an engineer, and engineers in the Service
at the present time are somewhat small beer. Anyway, as a money-making
concern, the Service don't pan out anything great. Bounce told me that the
seamen haven't had a rise in pay since Nelson's time."
The sailor laughed. "That's a good old A.B.'s growl," he said. "I gather,
too, that engineering is not panning out so very great as a money-making
concern just now."
"No! you're right. I'm a bit sick when I think of it, too, it's rather
sickening. I've got a model upstairs of an engine that would make any man's
fortune, and I can't get the fools to take it up. I think I shall have to break
away for the States."
They were all silent for some minutes till the old vicar rose. "Shall we
go to bed?" he said, and they proceeded upstairs, solemnly, silently, in
single file.
The weeks passed away and Jack's uncle went back to sea, and his
brothers returned to London, and another brother came and went. The
winter changed to spring, the days lengthened out and grew brighter, and
still Jack Carstairs could get nothing to do, nor get any one to take up his
patent. Then one morning amongst the two or three letters awaiting him was
one with a penny stamp: the ha'penny ones he knew were the stereotyped
replies of the various municipalities to the effect that they "regretted" his
application had not been successful; it was a way they had, they sent these
things with a sort of grim humour about a month after he had seen by the
papers that some one else had been appointed; it wasn't very often they
went to the extravagance of a penny stamp for a refusal, so he opened that
first, glancing casually at the city arms emblazoned on the flap of the
envelope; enclosed was a typewritten letter, he was appointed switchboard
attendant at £1 per week.
Carstairs gazed at it sternly with bitter hatred of all the world in his
heart. "A blasted quid," he said, aloud. "Ye gods! a quid a week! And
Darwen, the cheat, is getting £750." He hadn't fully realized when he was
writing his applications for these small appointments, exactly the extent of
his fall; but now, as he had it in typewritten form before his eyes, and
signed, he looked again, signed by a man who had served his time with him.
Mrs Carstairs was humbly thankful for small mercies, but the old vicar,
whom Jack found alone in his study, looked into his son's eyes and read the
bitterness of soul there. "Do you think it would be wise to refuse and wait
for something better. This is your home you know. You can work on your
patent."
"I thought of all that before I applied," Jack answered. "The patent! The
path of the inventor seems the most difficult and thorny path of all."
The old man's eyes brightened; he liked the stern definiteness of his
youngest son. "It does seem hard," he said. "I don't understand these things,
but I think you are wise to take this appointment."
"Oh, yes! I have no idea of refusing, but when I think that that lying
cheat, Darwen, is getting £750 a year, it makes me feel pretty sick."
"I know, Jack; we see these things in the Church the same as
everywhere else; the cheat seems sometimes to prosper. Why it should be
so, I cannot comprehend; the cheat must inevitably cheat himself as the liar
lies to himself, so that they both live in a sort of fool's paradise; they both
unaccountably get hold of the wrong end of the stick; they imagine that they
are successful if they satisfy others that they have done well, while the only
really profitable results ensue when one satisfies oneself that one has done
well; then and only then, can real intellectual, moral, and physical, progress
follow. It is possible to imagine a being of such a low order of morality that
he could feel a real intellectual pleasure in outwitting his fellow-men by
cheating; such an one, it seems to me, must be very near the monkey stage
of development. As man progresses intellectually he sets his intellect harder
and harder tasks to perform, else he declines. It is possible that the cheat
may occasionally reap very material and worldly advantages by his
cheating. Some few apparently do, though the number must be extremely
small and the intellectual capacity exceedingly great, for they are constantly
pitted, not against one, but against the whole intellect of the world,
including their brother cheats. The rewards and the punishments alike, in
the great scheme of the Universe, are spread out unto the third and the
fourth generation; the progeny of the cheat, in my experience, decline in
intellect and moral force till probably the lowest depths of insanity and
idiocy are reached. This great law of punishment for the sins of the fathers
is beyond my mental grasp, but that it is so I cannot doubt; it is in fact, to
me, the greatest proof that there must be something beyond the grave. You
understand, Jack, I'm not in the pulpit, this is worldly wisdom, but I want to
set these things before you as they appear to me. You must forget Darwen;
you reap no profit from his success or failure, but you expend a large
amount of valuable energy in brooding over it. 'Play up, and play the game,'
Jack. Don't cheat because others are cheating, if you do you are bound to
become less skilful in the real game. Think it over, Jack, 'Keep your eyes in
the boat,' don't think about the other crew or the prize, simply 'play the
game.' Have you told your mother you're going?"
"Yes."
"No, thanks. I've got all the books I want. You've seen my two packing
cases full."
"Ah, yes! I'd forgotten. So you're going to-morrow. That's rather soon,
isn't it?"
"I told them that if appointed I'd start at once. I'm going to pack and
then whip round and say good-bye to my friends."
"Ah, of course. I'll see you off in the morning; six o'clock, did you say?"
"Yes, six ten at the station."
So Jack took his hat and stick and strolled round to his few friends in
the village to tell them he was going. The Bevengtons were furthest away,
and he called there last. Bessie had been away in London and other places,
nearly all the time he had been home, when he called now she was home.
He had heard she was coming.
"I've come to say good-bye, Mrs Bevengton. I've got a job, and I'm
going up north again."
They both looked pleased; Mrs Bevengton really liked Jack. "When are
you going?" she asked.
"To-morrow morning."
Bessie's jaw dropped, she was keenly disappointed, and she looked,
Jack thought, in the pink of condition, more so than usual.
"I hope it's a good appointment, Jack," Mrs Bevengton said; she was
disappointed too.
"Come on out for a walk, Jack," she said. "I haven't had a look round
the old place for nearly a year. We shall be back to tea, mother."
She got her hat and they walked briskly down the pleasant village street
in the glorious spring sunshine; every one they passed greeted them with
civility and respect. Jack regarded them with pleasure; he told Bessie they
were the stiffest, hardest, and most genuinely civil crowd he had ever
encountered. "Perhaps I'm biassed," he said, "but I like men and these chaps
appeal to me more than any others I've met so far."
They turned across the fields and went more slowly. "I've been having a
good time, Jack, while I've been away."
"Well, I've been to a lot of dances and parties and theatres, etc. I
suppose I've enjoyed it—in a way."
"Jack!" she was walking very slowly. "Two men—three men, asked me
to marry them."
"Ah! I suppose they were not the right ones." He did not quite know
what to say.
"I don't quite know. I've come home to decide. I don't think I care for
him in quite the right way. Why did he break off his engagement to Miss
Jameson?"
"He told me that he thought he was in love with her till he saw me, then
he knew he wasn't."
"Er—yes."
"He's very nice and very handsome, still I know I don't care for him as
—as I do for some one else."
Carstairs was silent, he was trying to think. The situation was getting
beyond him, he had a fleeting idea of trying to change the subject, of
closing the matter; but he knew that once closed it could never be re-
opened, and he wanted to do the right thing. They were silent for some
minutes.
"Jack?" she asked, and the struggle was painful. "Has my money made
any difference to you?"
"Half a minute!" he said, hastily. "Don't say any more, please. Let me
think"—he paused—"Five years ago I met a girl in Scotland."
"Yes. I thought not at one time, but I know now that I do."
"I'll write to Mr Darwen to-night and tell him that if he likes to wait a
long, long time, I'll marry him," she said.
Carstairs was silent; the great big English heart of him was torn asunder.
"Why don't you speak, Jack? Mr Darwen's your friend, isn't he? He's
handsome and so kind and attentive, and if he cares for me as—as he says
he does, I think I ought to marry him. I couldn't before, but now—don't you
think I ought?"
"Well, er—it's more a question for the guv'nor. Will you let me explain
the situation to him, and then he'll see you. The guv'nor's very wise, in these
things, and it's his province, you know. I should like you to talk to him."
"Thanks—thanks. I will."
That night Jack Carstairs sat up very late with his father in his study.
And next morning the train whisked him north, to the dim, grey north, and
the engines, and the steam, and the hard, hard men, mostly engineers. Jack
was very sad and silent in his corner of a third-class carriage all the way.
CHAPTER XVIII
He was an oldish man with whiskers and heavy, bushy eyebrows, just
turning grey; his questions were few and to the point, and Carstairs seemed
to feel he had met a kindred spirit at once. He listened attentively to
Carstairs' clear and concise explanations, and when it was over he did not
offer him a shilling as sometimes happened, but in the casual, unemotional,
north-country way, he handed him his card and asked if he would like to see
round his works "over yonder."
Carstairs glanced from the card in his hand to the rather shabby
individual, with the "dickey," and slovenly, dirty tie, in front of him.
"Then I'll see ye." He held out his hand and gave Carstairs a vigorous
grip. The name on the card was the name of a partner of a very prominent
firm of engine builders.
Carstairs felt a singular sense of satisfaction for the rest of the evening;
his perturbed mind seemed at peace, somehow.
Next morning, punctually at nine, he called at the office and was shown
round the extensive works by the old man in person. He explained and
Carstairs listened and made occasional comments or asked questions. And
ever and anon he felt a pair of keen eyes regarding him in thoughtful,
shrewd glances. When they had finished the circuit of the works, Carstairs
broached the subject of his patent, he felt an extreme friendliness towards
this rough, shrewd man, and he knew that his labours on the patent were at
last going to bear fruit.
"Yes."
"I'll come round and see it." And so he did there and then.
"I did."
They took it to pieces and spread the parts out on the table, the old man
examining them one by one. He offered no comment, and Carstairs put it
together again and turned it with his hand, showing the beautiful smooth
running of it.
"Oh, no!"
"I'll take those," the old man said, and seizing two of the heavier parts,
he tucked them under his arm. And thus, carrying it between them, they
returned to the big works. There a long consultation was held. The junior
partner (an ex-officer of the Royal Engineers) was called in, and the final
result was that the firm undertook to manufacture the engine and pay
royalties to Carstairs.
"I must see a lawyer and get advice as to the terms of the agreement,"
Carstairs said. "I'm only free in the mornings this week. Will that suit you?"
"Well, ye can start here in the drawing office on Monday at £2. Will that
do ye?"
He had entirely lost track of all his friends and station acquaintances.
"Bessie is not engaged," his father told him, "but Darwen still pesters
her with his attentions."
Jack was thoughtful. "She's a jolly decent girl, Bessie! If Darwen were
only honest! I shall go up to London, I want to see his mother." So next day
Carstairs went off.
"Hullo, old chap! How's the Carstairs' patent high-speed engine going?
Eh?"
"Well, I'm blowed!" There was that little flicker of the eyelids that
Carstairs knew so well. "Yes, there you are," he handed him a card with an
address on it.
"Ye gods. Ha! Ha! Ha! Good old Carstairs. The northern air is simply
wonderful for the nerves. Ha! Ha! Ha! I tell you what. I'll go out this
evening, just to oblige you. I'll go to the theatre. I haven't seen the new
thing at Daly's yet."
"Thanks!" Carstairs turned and went away. He made his way to the
address in South Kensington that Darwen had given him. It was a boarding-
house; he asked for Mrs Darwen and sent in his card. The German page-
waiter sort of chap showed him up to their private sitting-room.
She entered almost immediately, looking older and whiter, her eyes
more bleared and her cheeks deeply furrowed. She looked him sadly in the
face.
"Ah!" There was a gleam of pleasure in her eyes. "Why didn't you call
on me before you left Southville?"
"Ah!" She gave a deep sigh. "You're the best man, I think, I've ever met.
You want to know where she is?"
"Yes."
"Charlie's got an engine, too." She was watching him very closely.
He was very serious. "That's so, but I'm full of ideas for improvements
and other things, and it is most difficult, when one sees a thing that is
appropriate, not to assimilate it consciously or unconsciously into one's own
ideas."
"Still, I'll get them," she answered. She went out and came back in a
minute or two with a drawing board and a roll of tracings.
Carstairs glanced over the drawing, and allowed just a slight smile to
pucker up the corners of his eyes.
She looked at him and saw he was speaking the truth. She spread out the
tracing. "That girl from your lodgings in Southville brought that round one
day when he was out; he never gets angry, but I know he was annoyed
because she'd left it."
Carstairs bent down and examined it. "It's done rather well," he said;
"girls are good tracers. I left that for her to copy."
"Oh! I didn't think you—I didn't know you knew. I wanted to warn
you."
She heaved a very deep sigh of relief. "That's been on my mind like a
ton weight. I was afraid my boy was a thief. Very often I was on the point of
writing to you, but—you hadn't called."
Carstairs was bent low over the drawing examining some fine work
very closely, he was so deeply interested he did not look up as she spoke.
"That's excellent work! Darwen was always an artist, in everything," he
said.
"Yes," she answered, proudly, "he's very clever. I'm so sorry you
quarrelled. I knew that girl would come between you."
"Yes," she repeated, "but you're the one she really likes, I know." Mrs
Darwen seemed to have grown visibly younger.
Carstairs straightened himself and stood looking down at her with his
calm steady grey eyes. "Ye-es," he said, he was thinking rapidly. "Yes, I
hope that's true. Will you give me her address; has she—er—got a
situation?"
"Oh, no! she's been in London, having her voice trained. She's got a
magnificent voice."
"Where did she get the money from?" he asked, he was quite pale, and
his grey eyes glittered like newly fractured steel.
She looked at him aghast, frightened; she put an imploring hand on his
arm. "The girl's honest. I know she is. I'm sure of it; she was saving. I know
she was saving. Perhaps Lady Cleeve——"
"Perhaps Charlie——"
"No, no! I know she wouldn't take anything from him, because—
because that was why she left."
The words brought back a luminous vision to Carstairs; his eyes took on
a far-away look. "My word! she was full of pluck," he said, aloud, but really
to himself.
Mrs Darwen smiled with great pleasure. "If—when you've married her,
you'll be friends with Charlie again——?"
He shook hands and left her, and half an hour later he called at her son's
office. The office boy showed him in and he held out his hand. Darwen
grasped it with a warm friendly smile.
"In the presence of other people," Carstairs said, as the door closed
behind the office boy, "we are friends, because your mother is one of the
best women on this earth. How she came to have such a whelp as you, Lord
only knows. Do you agree?"
"My dear chap, I am honoured and delighted. It is not often one gets an
opportunity of shaking an honest man by the hand, even though the excuse
for doing so is a lie." He smiled his most charming smile. "You're putting
on weight, Carstairs."
"So am I."
Darwen sat back in his chair lost in thought. "That man always makes
me think. Wonderful man, wonderful man. Damn him!" He sat up suddenly
and went on with his work.
That night Carstairs reached Southville; he got out and put up at a hotel
for the night. Before going to bed he went out and strolled round the town
in the silence of the late evening. Old memories crowded back on him, and
although they were not always of pleasant happenings, the taste of them
was sweet; he had progressed since then, and he felt, in the bones of him, he
knew, that he was going forward. His steps turned mechanically towards the
electric lighting works, and before he quite realized where he was going, he
found himself facing the old familiar big gates with the little wicket at the
side. He looked at his watch. "Eleven o'clock! Wonder who's on." He
paused a minute, then opened the wicket and went in. "Probably some of
the men who knew me are still here," he thought.
The engine room was just the same. The hum of the alternators and the
steady beat of the engines thrilled his blood. He stood in the doorway for
some minutes in silence. The sight of running machinery was meat and
drink to him. A little square-shouldered man wandered up to ask him what
he wanted. Carstairs held out his hand. "Hullo, Bounce, have you forgotten
me?"
"Well, I never. Mister Carstairs! I ain't forgotten you, sir, but you was in
the dark."
"A new engineer, sir. They be all new since your time."
So they stood talking for some time. "I suppose you're off at twelve,
Bounce?"
"Yes, sir."
"It's nearly that now. I'll wait. You can come round to my hotel and get a
drink."
"Thank you, sir. I'll go and wash and change. Would you like to see the
engineer?"
"No, thanks, I'll just sit on this box and watch the wheels going round:
same old box, same old wheels. How many hours of the night have I spent
sitting on this box listening to your damn lies, Bounce?"
Carstairs sat and waited, and all sorts of fresh fancies and ideas
thronged through his brain as the wheels went round and the alternators
hummed and the corliss gear clicked. A distinct and complete idea for a
valuable improvement shaped itself in his mind as he watched and listened.
He stood up and stretched himself with a sigh of great content. "By Jove, if
old Wagner composed music like that, he'd have done a damn sight more
for humanity," he said to himself, with a smile at the sacrilege of the
thought. To Carstairs, Wagner was a drawing-room conjurer, not to be
thought of at the same instant as men who designed engines. Bounce came
down the engine-room towards him with his wide-legged sailor's roll. He
was attired in a blue-serge suit, spotlessly clean and neat. His strong, clean-
cut features and steady, piercing eyes showed to great advantage in the
artificial light and against the dark background of his clothes.
"By Jove, Bounce, I can't understand why it is you're not Prime Minister
of England."
The little man's bright eyes twinkled, but his features never relaxed. "I
can't understand it myself," he said.
They went off together to the hotel, where Carstairs drank whisky and
Bounce rum. The waiter looked at him somewhat superciliously, till he met
Bounce's eye fair and square, then he seemed impressed.
"Yes, I know."
"Yes, sir."
"I want to find her; she's round here somewhere, near the new water-
works."
"Yes, sir."
Carstairs stood up. "Now, look here, Bounce, I really cannot understand
—what the devil is there you can't do?"
"Go on. Tot up what you can do. Honest. No lies, mind."
"Alright. Here goes. I can walk and run and swim; box and wrestle and
fence; shoot a revolver, rifle, or big gun; push a perambulator, hand cart, or
wheel barrow; drive a steam engine, horse, or a motor car; stroke a boiler,
feed a baby, the missus, an' the kids; scrub a floor, table, or furniture; make
and mend and wash my own clothes; light a fire, make tea, coffee, or cocoa;
make the beds and clean the rooms; wash up dishes, lay the table and wait
at same; clean the windows, paint a house, and walk along the roof." Here
he started to digress. "I remember once in Hong Kong——"
"That'll do, I've heard all about Hong Kong. Let's hear about Bounce."
"Oh, yes! Sing a song, play the mouth organ. Catch fish (when they
bite), dance the waltz, polka, hornpipe, quadrilles, lancers, and schottische."
He paused.
"Go on."
"There ain't no more. Oh, yes! read an' write an' do sums." He scratched
his head. "Sometimes," he added.
"Oh, yes! I can splice, reave, whip, knot, bend, an' gen'rally handle
ropes."
"Yes an' no, but mind, I have 'ad a try at that. I come aboard drunk once
in——"