Page:The Torrents of Spring - Ernest Hemingway (1987 reprint).pdf/39

 "Oh, no," Yogi answered. "The inspectors get most of them."

Upstairs, apart in a separate room, two old men were working. Yogi opened the door. One of the old men looked over his steel spectacles and frowned.

"You make a draft," he said.

"Shut the door," the other old man said, in the high, complaining voice of the very old.

"They're our two hand-workers," Yogi said. "They make all the pumps the manufactory sends out to the big international pump races. You remember our Peerless Pounder that won the pump race in Italy, where Franky Dawson was killed?"

"I read about it in the paper," Scripps answered.

"Mr. Borrow, over there in the corner, made the Peerless Pounder all himself by hand," Yogi said.

"I carved it directly from the steel with this knife." Mr. Borrow held up a short-bladed, razorlike-looking knife. "Took me eighteen months to get it right."

"The Peerless Pounder was quite a pump all right," the high-voiced little old man said. "But we're working on one now that will show its heels to any of them foreign pumps, aren't we, Henry?"

"That's Mr. Shaw," Yogi said in an undertone. "He's probably the greatest living pump-maker."

"You boys get along and leave us alone," Mr. Borrow said. He was carving away steadily, his infirm old hands shaking a little between strokes.

"Let the boys watch," Mr. Shaw said. "Where you from, young feller?"

"I've just come from Mancelona," Scripps answered. "My wife left me."