river; and other members of machines, only asking to be put together and vivified by steam and they would go at their work with a will.
From the black rafters overhead hung the heavy folds of a dim atmosphere, half dust, half smoke. A dozen sunbeams, forcing their way through the grimy panes of the grimy upper windows, found this compound quite palpable and solid, and they moulded out of it a series of golden bars set side by side aloft, like the pipes of an organ out of its perpendicular.
Wade grew indignant, as he looked about him and saw so much good stuff and good force wasting for want of a little will and skill to train the force and manage the stuff. He abhorred bankruptcy and chaos.
“All they want here is a head,” he thought.
He shook his own. The brain within was well developed with healthy exercise. It filled its case, and did not rattle like a withered kernel, or sound soft like a rotten one. It was a vigorous, muscular brain. The owner felt that he could trust it for an effort, as he could his lungs for a shout, his legs for a leap, or his fist for a knock-down argument.
At the tap of the bell, the “bad lot” of men came together. They numbered more than two hundred, though the Foundry was working short. They had been notified that “that gonoph of a Whiffler was kicked out, and a new feller was in, who looked cranky enough, and wanted to see ’em and tell ’em whether he was a damn’ fool or not.”
