half of space, each motion
being controlled by an almost imperceptible handling of the levers.
"When these things are newly overhauled, you can regulate your blow to
within an eighth of an inch," says Experience. "We had a foreman here
once who could work 'em beautifully. He had the touch. One day a
visitor, no end of a swell in a tall, white hat, came round the works,
and our foreman borrowed the hat and brought the hammer down just enough
to press the nap and no more. 'How wonderful!' said the visitor, putting
his hand carelessly upon this lever rod here." Experience suits the
action to the word and the hammer thunders on the anvil. "Well, you can
guess for yourself. Next minute there wasn't enough left of that tall,
white hat to make a postage-stamp of. Steam-hammers aren't things to
play with. Now we'll go over to the stores ..."

Whatever apparent disorder there might have been in the works, the store
department is as clean as a new pin, and stupefying in its naval order.
Copper plates, bar, angle, and rod iron, duplicate cranks and slide
bars, the piston rods of the _Bradford Leslie_ steamer, engine grease,
files, and hammer-heads--every conceivable article, from leather laces
of beltings to head-lamps, necessary for the due and proper working of a
long line, is stocked, stacked, piled, and put away in appropriate
compartments. In the midst of it all, neck deep in ledgers and indent
forms, stands the many-handed Babu, the steam of the engine whose power
extends from Howrah to Ghaziabad.

The Company does everything, and knows everything. The gallant
apprentice may be a wild youth with an earnest desire to go occasionally
"upon the bend." But three times a week, between 7 and 8 P.M., he must
attend the night-school and sit at the feet of M. Bonnaud, who teaches
him mechanics and statics so thoroughly that even the awful Government
Inspector is pleased. And when there is no night-school the Company will
by no means wash its hands of its men out of working-hours. No man can
be violently restrained from going to the bad if he insists upon it, but
in the service of the Company a man has every warning; his escapades are
known, and a judiciously arranged transfer sometimes keeps a good fellow
clear of the down-grade. No one can flatter himself that in the
multitude he is overlooked, or believe that between 4 P.M. and 9 A.M. he
is at liberty to misdemean himself. Sooner or later, but generally
sooner, his goings-on are k