showing his two rows
of firm white teeth.

I somehow quite struck up an acquaintance with these two men, for while
the others looked askant at me and treated me as if I were my uncle's
spy, sent into the works to see how the men kept on, Pannell the smith
and Gentles the grinder were always ready to be civil.

My friendliness with Pannell began one morning when I had caught a mouse
up in the office overlooking the dam, where I spent most of my time
making drawings and models with Uncle Bob.

This mouse I took down as a _bonne bouche_ for Pannell's kitten, and as
soon as he saw the little creature seize it and begin to spit and swear,
he rested upon his hammer handle and stopped to watch it.

Next time I went into the smithy he did not flourish the white-hot steel
round my head, but gave it a flourish in another direction, banged it
down upon the anvil, and in a very short time had turned it into the
blade of a small hand-bill.

"You couldn't do that," he said smiling, as he cooled the piece of steel
and threw it down on the floor before taking out another.

"Not like that," I said. "I could do it roughly."

"Yah! Not you," he said. "Try."

I was only too eager, and seizing the pincers I took out one of the
glowing pieces of steel lying ready, laid it upon the anvil and beat it
into shape, forming a rough imitation of the work I had been watching,
but with twice as many strokes, taking twice as long, and producing work
not half so good.

When I had done he picked up the implement, turned it over and over,
looked at me, threw it down, and then went and stroked his kitten,
staring straight before him.

"Why, I couldn't ha' done a bit o' forging like that when I'd been at it
fower year," he said in his high-pitched voice.

"But my uncles have often shown me how," I said.

"What! Can they forge?" he said, staring very hard at me.

"Oh, yes, as well as you can!"

He blew hard at the kitten and then shook his head in a dissatisfied
way, after which it seemed as if I had offended him, for he seized his
hammer and pincers and began working away very hard, finishing a couple
of the steel bill-hooks before he spoke again.

"Which on 'em 'vented this here contrapshion?" he said, pointing to an
iron bar, by touching which he could direct a blast of air into his fire
without having the need of a man or boy to blow.

"Uncle John," I said.

"What! Him wi' the biggest head?"

I nodded.

"Yes; he said that