ation. It was as mute as an
oyster. There is no one within your jurisdiction to--ahem--"drop upon."

Let us, after this excursion into the offices, return to the shops and
only ask Experience such questions as he can without disloyalty answer.

"We used once," says he, leading to the foundry, "to sell our old rails
and import new ones. Even when we used 'em for roof beams and so on, we
had more than we knew what to do with. Now we have got rolling-mills,
and we use the rails to make tie-bars for the D. and O. sleepers and all
sorts of things. We turn out five hundred D. and O. sleepers a day.
Altogether, we use about seventy-five tons of our own iron a month here.
Iron in Calcutta costs about five-eight a hundredweight; ours costs
between three-four and three-eight, and on that item alone we save three
thousand a month. Don't ask me how many miles of rails we own. There are
fifteen hundred miles of line, and you can make your own calculation.
All those things like babies' graves, down in that shed, are the moulds
for the D. and O. sleepers. We test them by dropping three hundredweight
and three hundred quarters of iron on top of them from a height of seven
feet, or eleven sometimes. They don't often smash. We have a notion here
that our iron is as good as the Home stuff."

A sleek, white, and brindled pariah thrusts himself into the
conversation. His house appears to be on the warm ashes of the
bolt-maker. This is a horrible machine, which chews red-hot iron bars
and spits them out perfect bolts. Its manners are disgusting, and it
gobbles over its food.

"Hi, Jack!" says Experience, stroking the interloper, "you've been
trying to break your leg again. That's the dog of the works. At least he
makes believe that the works belong to him. He'll follow any one of us
about the shops as far as the gate, but never a step further. You can
see he's in first-class condition. The boys give him his ticket, and,
one of these days, he'll try to get on to the Company's books as a
regular worker. He's too clever to live." Jack heads the procession as
far as the walls of the rolling-shed and then returns to his machinery
room. He waddles with fatness and despises strangers.

"How would you like to be hot-potted there?" says Experience, who has
read and who is enthusiastic over _She_, as he points to the great
furnaces whence the slag is being dragged out by hooks. "Here is the old
material going into the furnace in that big iron buck