THE IRON AGE
MR. MABLETHORPE was much interested when Philip told him the story in
the holidays.
"The Head is all right," he said. "He was only a housemaster in my day,
but there was no doubting his quality, even then. But this man Brett is
a national disaster. Do you think you can derive any further profit from
remaining his disciple?"
No, Philip thought not.
* * * * *
So Philip arrived at Coventry at last, having started some years
previously, it may be remembered.
He was enrolled as a premium apprentice at the great works of the
Britannia Motor Company. Here he learned to use his fingers and his
fists, his muscles and his wits. He passed through the drawing-office,
and the erecting-shop, and the repairing-shop. The last interested him
most of all, for the Britannia Company repaired other cars besides their
own; so here Philip could indulge in the pleasures of variety. He
learned to handle cars of every grade and breed. There was the lordly
Britannia car itself--the final word in automobilism--with its long
gleaming body and six-cylinder engine, so silent and free from vibration
that it was possible to balance a half-crown edgewise upon the faintly
humming radiator. There were countless other makes--racing-cars,
runabout cars, commercial cars, even motor omnibuses. Philip learned to
know the inner economy and peculiar ailments of all. There were American
cars so cheap that you could not believe it possible that they could be
sold at a profit to the maker--until it became necessary to put in
repairs or adjustments. Then the whole car seemed to fall to pieces like
a house of cards. Exasperated mechanics in the Britannia repairing-shop
had a saying that if you wanted to take up the engine-bearings in one of
these cars you had to begin by taking down the back axle. There was
sufficient truth in this adage to set Philip wondering why such a nation
of born engineers should make a point of placing their nuts and bolts in
almost inaccessible positions.
"What is the reason of it all?" he enquired one day of a colleague from
Pittsburg, who was assisting him to dismantle the greater part of the
clutch and flywheel of a cheap American car as a preliminary to
adjusting the magneto. "Why do you make cars like jig-saw puzzles?"
The colleague explained. He was a pleasant youth of twenty, with the
studiously courteous manners of the American gentleman,--they contrasted
quaintly with Philip's shy native _brusquerie_,--sent by a big-headed
father to acquire a little British ballast before assuming the position
of second in command at home.
"I conclude it is because our national point of view is different from
yours," he said. "These cars aren't _meant_ to be repaired. We make it
as difficult as possible to do so. You in this country like to build a
car that will last--like Westminster Abbey. Over there we say: 'What is
the use of sinking good money in a design that will be out of date in
two years anyway? Make it good if you can, but make it cheap, and when
it wears out, make another. And whatever you do, don't fool around
tinkering. Life's too short.' At least it is in our country," he added,
smiling. "Over here you seem to make it go a bit further, like your
automobiles. Unscrew that nut some more."
They were full and profitable years, those at the Britannia Works. As
Philip gradually emancipated himself from the hard manual labour of the
shops and rose from practical to theoretical problems, his old
mathematical and scientific ability cropped out again. His inventive
genius began to stir. Petrol was going steadily up in price, so Philip
set himself to experiment with substitutes. The result was the Meldrum
Paraffin Carburettor, now a standard adjunct of the commercial motor.
Later on came the Meldrum Fool-proof Automatic Lubricator, which
achieved high favour with absent-minded amateurs who made a hobby of
allowing their engines to seize. And later, in fulness of time, came the
Meldrum Automatic Electro-magnetic Brake, which was destined to play a
tremendous part in Philip's history, as you shall hear.
With all these burning interests to occupy him, Philip had little time
for amusement. He played Rugby Football regularly for Coventry City; and
any one who has had experience of that gentle pastime as cultivated in
the Midland counties will realise the testimonial to Philip's muscle and
general fitness involved in his selection. Every Saturday he fared forth
with his colleagues to do battle with the men of Moseley and Leicester,
or even penetrated to London, there to indulge in feats of personal but
friendly violence at the expense of Blackheath or the London Scottish.
He particularly enjoyed the occasional visits of the team to Oxford and
Cambridge, for there he usually encountered some old friend--Lemaire,
now a scholar of Balliol, or Desborough, coaching a crew upon the
tortuous Cam.
But Rugby football was no fetish with Philip--which would have pleased
Mr. Brett. All his heart was centred on his work. To Philip in those
days Work was Life--a point of view which in due course Time would
correct, or rather supplement. Each night when he said his prayers,--he
had contracted the habit at the age of sixteen, after a certain Sunday
evening sermon from the Head, backed by a particular hymn, which had
awakened in his rapidly developing little soul the knowledge that there
were more things in heaven and earth than were included in Uncle
Joseph's scheme of education,--he asked his Maker, _tout court_, for
work, and work, and more work, and health wherewith to perform it. Only
that.
In addition to Collier, the American, he made other friends about the
Works. Some were of humble station; others--like himself--premium
apprentices who had paid to be taught their business, and hoped one day
to direct businesses of their own, or at the worst lounge immaculately
in a showroom in Bond Street or Pall Mall, intimidating wealthy but
plebeian patrons into buying more expensive cars than had been their
original intention. They were a rowdy, sociable, good-hearted crew,
addicted to what they called "jags" on Saturday nights. Then there were
the salaried staff of the Works. One, Bilston, director of the
drawing-office, conceived a strong liking for the capable Meldrum, and
it was mainly through his representations that Philip, when he emerged
from his apprenticeship and began to pass examinations, was kept on at
the Works and given a post which combined increased responsibility with
further opportunities to perfect himself in his craft.
Occasionally Philip took a holiday. Sometimes he went to Cheltenham,
where Uncle Joseph, roaring like any sucking dove, was devoting his
reclaimed existence to Territorial Associations and Boy Scouts. To be
quite frank, Philip was secretly conscious of a feeling of slight
boredom at Cheltenham. A perfectly happy couple are undeniably just a
little dull, and Uncle Joseph and the Beautiful Lady were so entirely
wrapped up in one another and their daughter--an infant of quite
phenomenal wisdom and beauty--that the ordinary pleasures of life were
not for them. They held, rightly, that pleasure is the resource of those
who have failed to find happiness, and consequently had no need of it;
but their nephew, who had not yet arrived at the period when a man
begins to ask himself whether he is happy or not, and possessed a frank
and healthy appetite for the usual diversions of a young man on holiday,
found existence at Cheltenham a trifle too idyllic to be satisfying.
He enjoyed himself more at Red Gables. Mr. Mablethorpe remained as
incorrigibly Peter Pannish as ever. Although his hair was whitening and
his figure becoming more spherical, he declined to grow up. His levity
was a perpetual sorrow to his sensitive spouse. Once, in response to a
more than usually tearful appeal, he made a resolute effort to reform.
He read the "Times" at breakfast, supplements and all. He dressed
himself in tight garments and accompanied his wife to tea-parties. He
began to talk of engaging a chauffeur instead of indulging in personal
bear-fights with Boanerges. In short, he became so unspeakably dull that
Mrs. Mablethorpe grew more tearful than ever, and said it was breaking
her spirit to have to keep on smiling and being cheerful for two.
Whereupon Mr. Mablethorpe, removing his tongue from his cheek, reverted
to his former state, to the great comfort of Red Gables.
Of the Dumpling, Philip did not see much. She was usually at school; but
when they met during the holidays she always appeared to her former
playmate to have lost yet more of her adiposity and to have shot up
another six inches. But they continued to be firm allies; and though in
time the dumpling grew reserved and _gauche_, after the manner of
adolescent maidens, their old joyous _camaraderie_ over such things as
Boanerges and birds' nests was never suffered to die out.
One other haunt of his youth Philip visited--the house on Hampstead
Heath.
He went twice. The first visit was paid during one of his school
holidays, a trial trip on a new bicycle affording a pretext. (Philip was
too much of a schoolboy by this time to admit even to himself that he
proposed to ride forty miles just to see a girl.) It was midsummer. He
arrived on the Heath about two in the afternoon, and, leaving his
bicycle leaning against the trysting-gate of happy memory, cruised
methodically about, stealthily watching the house in the hope that a
certain slim figure would emerge from the side door and come skipping
down the road.
But no such thing happened. The only member of the household whom he
encountered was Montagu Falconer himself. He swung suddenly out of a
side road, walking at his usual frantic pace, and, looking straight
through Philip, whom he entirely failed to recognise, shot past him and
was gone. But nothing further happened, and our knight, after lingering
until dusk, pedalled home unrewarded by a glimpse of his Lady.
The second visit was paid two years later. This time Philip arrived at
Hampstead by Tube, and walked boldly up to the Heath, big with
resolution. He had decided to ring the bell like a real afternoon caller
and enquire if Mrs. Falconer were at home.
As he drew near the house his footsteps faltered. Young women may wonder
why, but the young man who still remembers the agony of his first formal
call will not. But Philip walked on resolutely.
Finally he arrived at the house of his Lady. It was shuttered and
silent. The garden was weedy and the lawn unshaven. Beside the gate a
staring board said:--
TO LET