_ain't_ that a su'cumstance? w'y, we was just talkin' of havin'
mother over to see the works, an' lettin' her be convinced by her own
eyes that there is a hammer there of five ton weight, drove by steam,
an' a pair o' scissors as can cut cold iron an inch thick. You'll go
mother, won't you?"

"Well, I dessay it would be amoosin'; yes, I'll go, Bob, if father's
better."

Accordingly, much to Will Garvie's disappointment it was arranged that
Mrs Marrot was to accompany him and Bob to the great railway "Works" on
the following day.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

MRS. MARROT AND BOB VISIT THE GREAT CLATTERBY "WORKS."

We cannot presume to say what sort of a smiddy Vulcan's was, but we feel
strongly inclined to think that if that gentleman were to visit the
works of the Grand National Trunk Railway, which are about the finest of
the kind in the kingdom, he would deem his own old shop a very
insignificant affair!

The stupendous nature of the operations performed there; the colossal
grandeur of the machinery employed; the appalling power of the forces
called into action; the startling _chiaro scuro_ of the furnaces; the
Herculean activity of the 3500 "hands;" the dread pyrotechnic displays;
the constant din and clangour--pshaw! the thing is beyond conception.
"Why then," you will say, "attempt description?" Because, reader, of
two evils we always choose the less. Description is better than
nothing. If you cannot go and see and hear for yourself, there is
nothing left for you but to fall back on description.

But of all the sights to be seen there, the most interesting, perhaps,
and the most amusing, was the visage of worthy Mrs Marrot as she
followed Will Garvie and her son, and gazed in rapt amazement at the
operations, and listened to the sounds, sometimes looking all round with
a half-imbecile expression at the rattling machinery, at other times
fixing her eyes intently down on one piece of mechanism in the vain hope
of penetrating its secrets to the core. Bob was not much less amazed
than his mother, but he had his sharp wits about him, and was keenly
alive to the delight of witnessing his mother's astonishment.

The works covered several acres of ground, and consisted of a group of
huge buildings which were divided into different departments, and in
these the railway company manufactured almost every article used on the
line--from a locomotive engine to a screw-nail.

Here, as we have said, above 3500 men and boys