Page:The Story of the Gadsbys - Kipling (1888).djvu/72

 —It's your work and—and if you'd let me, I'd count all these things up. If they are too heavy, you know by how much they are too heavy, and you must have a list of things made out to your scale of lightness, and

—I have got both scales somewhere in my head; but it's hard to tell how light you can make a head-stall, for instance, until you have actually had a model made.

—But if you read out the list, I could copy it down, and pin it up there just above your table. Wouldn't that do?

—It would be awf'ly nice, dear, but it would be giving you trouble for nothing. I can't work that way. I go by rule of thumb. I know the present scale of weights, and the other one—the one that I'm trying to work to—will shift and vary so much that I couldn't be certain, even if I wrote it down.

—I'm so sorry. I thought I might help. Is there anything else that I could be of use in?

(looking round the room).—I can't think of anything. You're always helping me, you know.

—Am I? How?

—You are you of course, and as long as you're near me—I can't explain exactly, but it's in the air.

—And that's why you wanted to send me away?

—That's only when I'm trying to do work—grubby work like this.

—Mafflin's better then, isn't he?

(rashly).—Of course he is. Jack and I have been thinking along the same groove for two or three years, about this equipment. It's our hobby, and it may really be useful some day.

(after a pause).—And that's all that you have away from me?

—It isn't very far away from you now. Take care that the oil on that bit doesn't come off on your dress.

—I wish—I wish so much that I could really