The Log of the Flying Fish: A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure, Page 2

  CHAPTER TWO.

  THE REALISATION OF A SCIENTIST'S DREAM.

  Punctual to the moment, Professor von Schalckenberg opened the door ofthe smoke-room at the "Migrants'," and entered the apartment as thedeep-toned notes of Big Ben were heard sounding the hour of noon on theday following that upon which occurred the conversation recorded in thepreceding chapter. Sir Reginald Elphinstone was already there; andafter a few words of greeting the two men left the club together, and,entering the baronet's cab, which was in waiting, drove away to thebanker's, where the business of the money transfer was soon concluded.

  The pair then separated; and for the next fortnight the professor wasbusy all day, and during a great part of the night, with his drawingsand calculations. At the end of that time, having completed his work onpaper to his satisfaction, he took advantage of a fine day to make alittle excursion. Proceeding to London Bridge, he embarked in a riversteamer, about ten o'clock in the morning, and indulged himself in a rundown the river. He kept his eyes sharply about him as the boat speddown the stream; and just before reaching Blackwall he saw what hethought would suit him. It was a ship-building yard, "for sale, or tolet, with immediate possession", as an immense notice-board informedhim. Landing at the pier, he made his way back to the yard, and, havingwith some difficulty found the man in charge of the keys, proceeded toinspect the premises. They turned out to be as nearly what he wanted ashe could reasonably hope to find, being very spacious, with a fullsupply of "plant," in perfect working order, and with enough spare roomto allow of the laying down of the special "plant" necessary for themanufacture of his new metal. Having satisfied himself upon this point,he next obtained the address of the parties who had the letting of theyard and works, and proceeded back to town by rail. The parties of whomhe was now in search proved to be a firm of solicitors having offices inLincoln's Inn; and by them, when he had stated the object of his call,he was received with--figuratively--open arms. The premises had beenlying idle and profitless for some time; and they were only too glad tolet them to him upon a two years' lease upon terms highly advantageousto him and his client the baronet.

  This important business settled, the next thing was to lay down thespecial plant already referred to; and so energetic was the professor inhis management of this and the other necessary preliminaries that sixmonths sufficed to place the yard in a fit state for the commencement ofactual operations.

  And now the professor's troubles began in real earnest. Impressed withthe idea that he was perhaps wrong after all, and the baronet right, inhis judgment of the British workman, Herr von Schalckenberg determinedto run the risk of giving the Englishmen another trial. He had nodifficulty whatever in engaging an efficient office staff; but when itcame to securing the services of foremen, mechanics, and labourers, theunhappy German was driven almost to despair. He advertised his wantswidely, of course, and, in response to his advertisements, theapplications for employment poured in almost literally without number.The great entrance-gates of the works were fairly besieged, and theroadway outside blocked by the great army of applicants, who wereadmitted into the presence of the professor in gangs of twenty at atime. The professor had set out with the resolve that he would deal asliberally with his employes as he possibly could, consistently withjustice to his client, the baronet; and with this object he had sparedno pains to ascertain the rate of wages then ruling for such men as hewanted. With the data thus obtained he had drawn up a scale of paywhich he was prepared to offer, and beyond which he had resolved not togo. Armed with this, he interviewed the countless applicants as theypresented themselves before him; and the result was enough to drive todistraction even a more patient man than Herr von Schalckenberg. Theapplicants proved to be, almost without exception, trades-unionists, outon strike because their employers had declined or had been unable toaccede to the exorbitant demands of the workmen. These workmen had inmany cases been idle for months; yet they now unhesitatingly refusedemployment, and refused it insolently too, because the wages offered bythe professor, though fully equal to those paid by other employers, wereless than they chose to consider themselves entitled to. Their wivesand children were, by their own admission, naked and starving, and herewas an opportunity to clothe and feed them, yet they rejected itscornfully. And naked, starving though the families of these wretchesmight be and actually were, almost every man of them, bearing out theprofessor's criticism of them, had a short dirty pipe in his mouth andsmelt strongly of drink. There were a few exceptions to this rule--about one in every fifty applicants, perhaps--and they were almost allnon-union men, who eagerly and thankfully accepted employment, carelessof the sneers, gibes, and threats of the others; and these proved to be,with scarcely a single exception, steady, reliable, honest, and capablemen, who soon worked themselves into leading positions. The professorwanted about two hundred men, and he succeeded in securing twenty; afterwhich his overtasked patience gave out, and in despair he obtained theremainder from Germany.

  All this took time; and it was not until nearly eight months after theconversation in the "Migrants'" smoke-room that the professor wasactually able to commence work in the building yard. Then, however, theoperations proceeded apace. Day after day long mineral trains joltedand clanked noisily along the siding and into the yard, where theydisgorged their loads and made way for still other trains; day after dayclumsy steam colliers hauled in alongside the yard wharf and under thefussy steam-cranes to discharge their cargoes; and very soon the loftyfurnace chimneys began to belch forth a never-ending cloud of inkysmoke. Very soon, too, the belated wayfarer might possibly, had he beenso disposed, have obtained a chance glimpse, through accidental chinksin the close palisading, of a long range of brilliantly lightedbuildings, wherein, if the doors happened to be inadvertently left open,he would have witnessed huge outpourings of dazzling molten metal,which, after being subjected to the action of certain chemicals, andpassing through divers strange processes, was passed as it solidifiedthrough a series of powerful rolling mills, which relentlessly squeezedand flattened it out, until it finally emerged, still glowing red withfervent heat, in the shape of long flat symmetrically shaped sheets, orangle-bars and girders of various sections. And, a little later on, aninquisitive individual, could he have obtained a peep into the jealouslyboarded-in building shed, might have seen a far-reaching series of lightcircular ribs of glittering silver-like metal, of gradually decreasingdiameter as they spread each way from the central rib, rearingthemselves far aloft toward the ground-glass skylight which surmountedthe roof of the building. But perhaps the strangest sight of all, couldone but have gained admission into the forge to see it, was the hugemain shaft of the ship, which, after having been mercilessly pounded andbattered into shape by the giant Nasmith hammers, was coolly seized byonly a couple of men, and by them easily carried into the machine-shop,there to receive its finishing touches in the lathe.

  And so the work went on, steadily yet rapidly, until at length it sonearly approached completion that the professor was every week enabledto dispense with the services of and pay off an increasingly largenumber of men. Finally, the day arrived when the score or so ofpainters and decorators, who then constituted the sole remnant of theprofessor's late army of workmen, completed their task of beautifyingthe interior of the aerial ship, and, receiving their pay, weredismissed to seek a new field of labour. The official staff now aloneremained, and to these, after making them a pleasant littlecomplimentary speech expressing his appreciation of the zeal and abilitywith which they had discharged their duties, Herr von Schalckenbergannounced the pleasant intelligence that, although he had now no furtherneed of their services, Sir Reginald Elphinstone had, upon his--theprofessor's--earnest recommendation, successfully used his influence tosecure them other and immediate employment. The professor then handedeach man a cheque for his salary, including three months' extra pay inlieu of the usual notice of dismissal to which he was entitled, togetherwith a letter of introduction to his new employer, and, shaking handsw
ith the staff all round, bade them good-bye, wishing them individuallysuccess in their new posts. Then, watching them file out of the officefor the last time, he waited until all had left the premises, when heturned the key in the door, and making his way into the interior of thebuilding shed, found himself at length alone with his completed work.

  How the professor spent the next few hours no man but himself can say;but it is reasonable to suppose that, man of science though he was, hewas still sufficiently human to regard with critical yet innocent prideand exultation the wonderful fabric which owed its existence to theinventive ingenuity of his fertile brain. It is probable, too, thatwhen he had at length gratified himself with an exhaustive contemplationof its many points of interest, he went on board the ship, and with hisown eyes and hands made a final inspection and trial of all hermachinery, to satisfy himself that everything was complete and ready.At all events, however the professor may have passed those few hours ofprecious solitude, when he finally handed over the keys to the yardwatchman and bade him "good-night" late on that summer evening, hiswhole bearing and appearance was that of a thoroughly happy andsatisfied man.