WORK IN LONDON
bids workmen run the wet sand through trap doors, he explains how these three industries, set there together in that hollow, work one into another so that nothing is lost. The hot water from the boilers of the cement works runs in those open conduits to separate in the sand works the sand from the loam; the separated loam makes the bricks in the brick works. He waves his hands and shouts in the immense roar of pebble-crushing machines to explain how what appears to be a lot of old ploughshares tied together with rope is really a nice device of his own for regulating the pressure on the crushing rollers. These things are the great, the romantic facts of his world. Because they are so, his managing director has advanced him very quickly from being a shovel boy, paddling in the warm and sandy water, to be superintendent of the whole works.
But it is almost more important that the hands all like him. His director can go home and sleep, or leave the place for days on end, confident that Stanley has the knack of infusing into his men some of his own interest in the work itself, and that he will not by petty tyrannies bring on a strike. That particular human quality, the particular sort of artistic delight in his work which brings to birth an esprit de corps, is almost the most precious quality that a man can offer in these days of organisation. Without at least a share of it Stanley could never have risen from the ranks; with as much as he has there is no limit to his possibilities.
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