wrong with it.
We went upstairs together, the colonel first with the lamp, the fat
manager and I behind him. It was a labyrinth of an old house, with
corridors, passages, narrow winding staircases, and little low doors,
the thresholds of which were hollowed out by the generations who had
crossed them. There were no carpets and no signs of any furniture above
the ground floor, while the plaster was peeling off the walls, and the
damp was breaking through in green, unhealthy blotches. I tried to put
on as unconcerned an air as possible, but I had not forgotten the
warnings of the lady, even though I disregarded them, and I kept a keen
eye upon my two companions. Ferguson appeared to be a morose and silent
man, but I could see from the little that he said that he was at least
a fellow-countryman.
Colonel Lysander Stark stopped at last before a low door, which he
unlocked. Within was a small, square room, in which the three of us
could hardly get at one time. Ferguson remained outside, and the
colonel ushered me in.
We are now, said he, actually within the hydraulic press, and it
would be a particularly unpleasant thing for us if anyone were to turn
it on. The ceiling of this small chamber is really the end of the
descending piston, and it comes down with the force of many tons upon
this metal floor. There are small lateral columns of water outside
which receive the force, and which transmit and multiply it in the
manner which is familiar to you. The machine goes readily enough, but
there is some stiffness in the working of it, and it has lost a little
of its force. Perhaps you will have the goodness to look it over and to
show us how we can set it right.
I took the lamp from him, and I examined the machine very thoroughly.
It was indeed a gigantic one, and capable of exercising enormous
pressure. When I passed outside, however, and pressed down the levers
which controlled it, I knew at once by the whishing sound that there
was a slight leakage, which allowed a regurgitation of water through
one of the side cylinders. An examination showed that one of the
india-rubber bands which was round the head of a driving-rod had shrunk
so as not quite to fill the socket along which it worked. This was
clearly the cause of the loss of power, and I pointed it out to my
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