"Bottom-filled," Polder concluded, assisting Mariana over the
precarious flooring; "the metal rises into the ingot forms."
They descended again, by the blackened brick, box-like office of the
superintendent, to the level of the pit, retraced the way over the
boardwalk. They passed a cavernous interior, filled with a continuous
crashing, where a great sheet of flushing steel was propelled over a
system of rollers through a black, dripping compression. "I can take you
to the Senate," James Polder told them, once more outside; "or the
Engineers' Society. Dinner will be ready at the club."
He conducted them into the serious interior of a large, solidly
constructed dwelling that had been transformed into a club. The dining
room was already filling but they secured a small table against the
wall. Across the floor ten or twelve men were gathered in a circle.
Some, Howat thought, were surprisingly young for the evident authority
in their manner, pronouncements; others were grey, weatherworn, men with
immobile faces often lost, in the middle of a gay period, in a sudden
gravity of thought, silent calculation. He saw the smooth, deft hands of
draughtsmen, and scarred, powerful hands that, like James Polder's, had
laboured through apprenticeship in pit and mill shop.
Pages:
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381