Midnight is a Place Read Online Free Page A

crimson to the elbows.
    Some of the carpets were woven with shuttles on looms. The looms, with their high and complicated machinery, occupied several of the large central buildings. But other carpets, the more inexpensive ones, were made in a new way, invented, Scatcherd told them, by Sir Quincy Murgatroyd, the original founder of the factory. He had devised a means of sticking short lengths of wool onto canvas, which was both faster and cheaper than the weaving process. And if the carpets tended to come unstuck after a few years, what did that matter? They were not the kind of carpets that were bought by rich folks. Imparting this information, Scatcherd gave his audience a malicious, sidelong glance.
    "T'glue's not t'best grade, you see," he remarked, pausing beside a huge vat which contained a frothy brown vile-smelling brew that was just coming to the boil. "Very poor glue that is, and joost as well, for when chaps falls into it, which happens from time to time, they stand a better chance o' coming out alive. Which they never did, mind you, in owd Sir Quincy's day; the glue he used would ha' stuck Blastburn Town Hall oopside down on top o' Kilnpit Crags till the week after Joodgement Day."
    "People fall in
there?
" said Lucas faintly.
    "Ah, it's slippery roond the edge, you see; you don't want to step too close, yoong master, or you'll get those nice nankeen britches splashed," Scatcherd told him with a mocking smile.
    Oakapple opened his mouth as if he would have liked to put in some remark, but Scatcherd led them on, talking all the time, past wide rollers, which spread the glue on the canvas backing, and complicated mechanical arms which, working back and forth on hinges, sprinkled the chopped-up wool over the gluey surface. Then there were implements like rakes, or combs, which straightened the pile, teasers to remove any dots of glue, sponges to mop away loose hairs, and a sucker-fan to draw the wool up so that it stood on end while the carpet was whirled round on a platform called a swiveler.
    "Had enow, maybe?" Scatcherd inquired drily as they stood by the swiveler which spun and rocked so giddily that it made Lucas feel dizzy just to watch it. "Reckon you've looked at as mooch as you can take for one shift?"
    Lucas did feel so, but his pride was pricked by Scatherd's tone. "What was that thing you spoke of to Mr. Smallside—the press? We haven't seen that yet, have we?"
    "Oh, I think we've looked at quite enough for one evening—<" Mr. Oakapple was beginning, but Scatcherd, again without seeming to have heard the tutor, said, seeming to find this a most unexpected request, "The press? You want to see the press? Eh, very well"—and he turned on his heel. "Down this way then. Pressing's the end o' the manufacturing process. After that the carpet's ready for sale. This here's the pressing room—careful down t'steps. They're slippery—t'glue gets all over."
    The pressing room was a huge place like the crypt of a church. Steps led down to it on all four sides.
    "Where
is
the press?" Lucas began, and then, looking up, he saw that the whole ceiling was in fact a great metal slab which could be raised or lowered by hydraulic machinery.
    A carpet was being unrolled and spread at feverish speed in the square central part of the room. The very instant it was laid out flat the men who had done so bounded up the steps, not a moment too soon, for the press came thudding down with a tremendous clap of dull sound.
    "Toss a cob nut in there, you'll get it cracked free gratis," Scatcherd said briefly.
    Lucas could well believe him. If anybody slipped and fell under the press, they would be done for. It rose up again much more slowly than it had come down, and the carpet was snatched away by a mechanical grab; then half a dozen overall-clad children with brooms, who had been ready waiting on the steps, darted out onto the floor and swept it with frantic speed and assiduity before the next piece of carpet was