Sydney Sandys

“ Don't be such a pessimist, Carstairs. I hate pessimists. Let me assure you, you are equally an enigma to me. I fail entirely to comprehend your mind. Why do you worry and dissipate your energies deciding what is right and what is wrong? What you really want to know is, what is best. There is nothing wrong in this best of all worlds, only degrees of rightness. All effort that produces no tangible personal benefit is so much wasted energy. You're not an Atlas, you can't carry the world on your shoulders. ”

“ After about two o'clock a.m. the whole works, in fact, became a sort of temporary palace of sleep; the stoker dozed on his box in the boiler house, the engine driver made himself snug on the bed plate of an engine, the fires in the boilers died gradually down from a fierce white to a dull red glow, the steam pressure gauge dropped back twenty or thirty pounds, the engines hummed away merrily, with a rather soothing sort of buzz from the alternator, and a mild sort of grinding noise from the direct current dynamos, with a little intermittent sparking at the brushes. ”

“ Take that to heart, Carstairs. God knows how much energy you've dissipated uselessly, in thoughts on other people, hopes and fears. Lord! I've been as happy as a bird all my life. That's true religion, Carstairs. I should like to have a talk with your guv'nor on that. He's a sound man, your guv'nor, but with a weakness for worrying over other people's troubles. ”

“ Darwen laughed. "Right you are, old chap."
Farrell was the mains superintendent; it was his pleasant duty to turn out of his bed, round up a gang of navvies, and dig holes in the street all night to ascertain what that "something" was, and remove it. The only consolation a Shift Engineer feels for the arduousness of his existence is that sometimes the mains man (whose life is usually cast in pleasant places) has even a rougher time than he has.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how electricity is "made"—the same as everything else that is any good—by the sweat of men. ”

“ The full tide of his deep, strong nature set to this beautiful woman; the splendid purpose of life tingled in his blood and shone out through his eyes as he gazed into hers. Only men like Carstairs feel such a tide. ”

“ At such moments the meek and lowly Shift Engineer feels that he is really alive; his only wish is that his chief may happen to drop in and share his happiness with him, or one or two of the councillors; he could accommodate them all with comfortable seats on the safety valves, and the possibility of a quick passage to heaven by the shortest route, straight upwards. Most chiefs are worse than useless on a switchboard during a breakdown; the Shift Engineer, handling the switches every day of his life, sometimes makes mistakes when he is in a hurry ”

“ You use steam, and coal, and electricity; but you totally disregard men and women. This little globe is just a box of bricks, you and I are part of them—everything fits in—your duty here below is to look after yourself, to fill your little niche efficiently."
Carstairs spoke. "You do that best by considering carefully your true relation to other people, the real interdependence of every one, and the lubrication of sentiment. As an engineer you must know that only the truth endures." ”

“ Carstairs gave a grudging assent. "Where is the limit?" he asked.
"I see no limit," Darwen answered.
"Then you're a common or garden rogue."
"Perhaps! Rogue is so often simply a term applied by fools to men smarter than themselves. However, I said, 'I see no limit'; I should add 'as yet.' My theory is incomplete, I am expanding it as I grow older."
"You'll expand yourself into prison if you don't look out." ”

“ You understand, Jack, I'm not in the pulpit, this is worldly wisdom, but I want to set these things before you as they appear to me. You must forget Darwen; you reap no profit from his success or failure, but you expend a large amount of valuable energy in brooding over it. 'Play up, and play the game,' Jack. Don't cheat because others are cheating, if you do you are bound to become less skilful in the real game. Think it over, Jack, 'Keep your eyes in the boat,' don't think about the other crew or the prize, simply 'play the game.' Have you told your mother you're going? ”

“ I've rather a contempt for Thor, he never showed any great brain capacity, but simply slogged around blindly with a sledge hammer. It's a question of my Gods versus your Gods: A man's religion is what he bases the conduct of his life on, not which church he attends on Sunday: our stars were in opposition from the start, Carstairs, and the moving finger of Fate is approaching very rapidly to a blot—the elimination of a unit, with large-bore magazine rifles—and I don't think it'll be me. ”

“ Darwen smiled apologetically. "The poor devil has had enough, though it's not a very serious wound. I tied him up, gave him some brandy and a pipe of tobacco. He's a unique specimen, born in the woods, and bred at sea, on sailing ships; hardly civilized, but quite a decent chap, very susceptible to music; only he's deficient in moral sensibilities. Like me." He looked at his mother and laughed.
She looked triumphantly at Carstairs. "And he won't give him up to the police. He's upstairs in Charlie's bed, and he wants me to nurse him and keep it dark. What do you think of it, Mr Carstairs?" ”

“ One has to be eliminated, that's obvious; I'm a generous sort of chap, but I can't oblige you in this. I'm in love, yes, by God, in real love for the first and only time. I want that girl, also you want her! We have fought with fists, and you won, but that is not the finish. I'm a sportsman; I'll go back a hundred years with you and we'll fight a duel, eh? A fair and square duel—to a finish."
Carstairs considered, watching him all the time. ”

“ Darwen stepped up close and looked intently into his eyes. "Do you ever lie, Carstairs?"
"Oh, yes! not, I think, frequently; as often as you, for instance." His face was sphinx-like still.
"No, by God, I don't believe you could! Decently!" He stepped back and laughed aloud. "You've neglected the most vital accomplishment of modern life—to lie well. Ta, ta, old chap, I wish we could be pals." He passed on with a happy smile and looked up to the sun. "The Lord has delivered him into my hands," he said, to himself.
Carstairs rejoined Whitworth, and they returned to the hotel. ”

“ Carstairs looked steadily into her excited, inflamed eyes. "I agree with you entirely, Mrs Darwen. The girl I'm in love with is a gipsy. She's a servant in a big house near my home."
"A servant?" Mrs Darwen seemed in doubt for a moment. Then the look of resolution again hardened in her eyes. "It doesn't matter what she is. Are you really in love?"
"I was."
"Ah! I see you're not. Once in love, always in love. Very few people really fall in love. They haven't got it in them. It's a matter of pluck. You've got it in you. ”

“ As an engineer you are good, but this is the age of states and municipalities, of diplomacy and intrigue; when men are judged for what they say, and not for what they do. Had my lot been cast among companies, instead of municipalities, I should have had to entirely alter my tactics. You can talk to a man and smile at him till you're blue in the face, but if he sees that your work don't pan out into tangible dividends, you've got to go. Municipalities don't put much on dividends, they like a smile and a loud voice. If socialism comes to pass, your type will die out and my type will flourish. ”

“ But when I answered him, when I said, 'You've called me a rogue and a liar, Mr Green, but I think you'll find if you carefully analyse your feelings on the matter, that it's my honesty and not my roguery, that annoys you. I'm sorry I can't see things as you do, Mr Green, but I'm a sportsman, and anything that appears to me unfair, or that I can't fully grasp, I invariably expose to the daylight, and turn and twist it till I can understand it, or till I let daylight into it. ”

“ Darwen's fingers moved very slowly, it was a slow waltz tune, very slow; his gaze was far away. "The whole world is a shop," he said, speaking very slowly. "Everything is bought and sold; the most successful salesman is not the man who has the best goods, but he who shows them most advantageously. We sell our brains, you and I, our brains and nerves. The buyers are the Corporation; this collection of greengrocers, drapers, lawyers, doctors, and one navvy. They are entirely incapable of judging our technical abilities, they rely on the opinion of a fool; a sort of promoted wireman, the chief." ”

“ Don't be an ass, Carstairs. I'm going to have that engine."
"That, of course, is for you to say."
A momentary gleam of anger like a flash of forked lightning shot across Darwen's face, but he smiled again banteringly. "I can't understand how such a clever chap as you can be such a fool. You don't seem able to grasp the fact that the cleverness one is paid for in this world, is the cleverness to outwit other people, not the ability to disentangle abstruse problems in the higher mathematics. ”

“ Carstairs for that second seemed more than a man. None but a man with his long record of clean living and strict training could have risen to such a blow after receiving such a pounding as he had.
Darwen dropped for the last time.
There was a tense silence as Bounce stood over him, the tenth second was called and still he lay there; his seconds picked him up and dabbed his face with a wet handkerchief; slowly the light of intelligence returned to his eyes. He sat up and looked round. ”

“ Charlie can explain it, he understands it."
"Result of heredity, relic of the chimpanzee," Darwen remarked casually.
"What is she like? Handsome?" Mrs Darwen asked.
"Very; and full of pluck."
"Full of pluck! Ah!" she gave a deep sigh. "They feel it most, always." She seemed very sad all of a sudden. "What's that bit of poetry, Charlie, about the strongest and the wisest, you know."
"Is it true, O Christ in Heaven, that the wisest suffer most,
That the strongest wander farthest, and most hopelessly are lost."
"That's it. You're very strong, Mr Carstairs. Brutal almost, and wise." ”

“ Darwen blazed out into a sudden anger. "You're a fool, Carstairs. You and your methods. It doesn't matter a curse to you how you generate your electricity, does it? You want results, that's all! The correct methods are the most successful, the most economical." He sobered down again suddenly and smiled. "Look here, Carstairs, I want to make this job, yours and mine, worth more than it is. I like this town and I want to stay here, but I must get some bally pay." ”

“ I've been getting two hundred and fifty quid a year, and earning it, saving it for the people who paid me. And I am willing to take a quid, one blasted quid a week, and I can't get it. I'm not going to beg for my own cursed rights. In all those hundreds of jobs I've applied for, I must have been the best man on my paper form alone. If I can't live as an engineer in my own cursed country, then, by God! I'll steal." He turned on his father with blazing eyes. "I say, I'll steal, and if any blundering idiot or flabby fool tries to stop me, I'll kill him dead. The first law of life is to live. ”

“ Carstairs, leaning back with folded arms, laughed too.
Darwen shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "I'm in a strange country, I cannot comprehend. 'Don't hit a man when he's down,' you say. Why! that's the only time you've got a chance to really punish him. Oh, the fearful and wonderful Saxon brain!" He stood up, and stretching both arms above his head, gazed upwards at the ceiling. "Surely, surely, the Saxon is the devil personified. The Lord, the great Lord Nature, has endowed the Saxon with mighty biceps and a head of surpassing density. ”

“ And you're going to marry Bessie Bevengton for a similar reason."
Darwen laughed. "The Saxons used to fight with sledge hammers," he said. "They're still adept with the weapon. A woman is simply a ragged bundle of emotions badly tied up, with the ends trailing out in all directions, and it's those trailing ends that upset half the world. A man never loves as the men in books do." ”

“ Jack was standing up with his back to the mantel-piece. His father smiled, then he stood up, too, and, laying a hand on his son's broad shoulder, looked with solemn, benevolent eyes into the eyes that were level with, and so like, his own. "Go on fetching things, my boy, but never forget that the object of life is happiness. And happiness is only possible to an easy conscience. ”