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 then the secondary, then the buzzer, and by that time anything you said to him he took as an insult. It was disturbing not to be certain whether this was part of Mr. Marsden's plan, or a horrible accident that might spoil everything. Anyway, we were stuck sure, and I was made to get out and hold a horrid lamp while papa fumed and swore.

The simplest adjustments are troublesome to make at night, and take ten times longer. You lose your tools, burn your fingers, and gradually work up to a state of fiendish exasperation. Papa took out the four plugs, connected them up, and then thought the batteries had given out because they didn't spark. It was as much as my life was worth to tell him he hadn't ground them properly, and at first he nearly snapped my head off. Don't think I'm blaming him. A gas engine would try a saint; and there he was, all trussed up in shining armor, and, as he said, feeling forty different kinds of a damn fool.

But he was immensely impressed when, with