Page:The Seven Seas (Kipling, 1896).djvu/169

Rh And they asked me how I did it, and I gave 'em the Scripture text,

'You keep your light so shining a little in front o' the next!'

They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind,

And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind.

Then came the armour-contracts, but that was M'Cullough's side;

He was always best in the Foundry, but better, perhaps, he died.

I went through his private papers; the notes was plainer than print;

And I'm no fool to finish if a man'll give me a hint.

(I remember his widow was angry.) So I saw what the drawings meant,

And I started the six-inch rollers, and it paid me sixty per cent—

Sixty per cent with failures, and more than twice we could do,

And a quarter-million to credit, and I saved it all for you!