Moist laughed. ‘Sir, anybody who has a proposition for me these days will get a maximum of five minutes, one of which has already passed. What is it?’
‘I’m not just anybody, Mister Lipwig,’ said the man, drawing himself up to his full height, which was in fact slightly less than his full girth. ‘I am a chef. Perhaps you’ve heard of me — All Jolson. I understand from certain sources[31] that any day now your wonderful locomotives will be going to and from Sto Lat. I wonder, have you thought about what the people on board will eat? I’d like to bid for the franchise to sell food on the trains and possibly in the waiting rooms as well. Small snacks, and more substantial servings for the long-distance passenger. There’s nothing like a pot of my slumpie to lift the spirits of a weary traveller. Or Primal Soup — very warming, that. I’ve been experimenting with serving it in cups, with little lids on, ’cos there are things in that soup that, to be honest, you wouldn’t want to spill on yourself.’
Moist caught the essential words like a trout catching a newborn mayfly. Food on the trains! Waiting rooms, yes! Places where people would want to spend their money. Once again he remembered that the railway was not just about the rails or the steam.
And as Jolson handed over a slightly lard-stained calling card Moist let his mind fill with ancillary possibilities. Yes, you would definitely need a place to stay while you were waiting for your train, somewhere dry and warm with something to drink and even, heaven forfend, a sausage inna bun that actually had seen a pig. And yes, since Dick had said he’d be quite happy for a locomotive to travel at night, then at the destination there might be railway hotels, as swish as the railway carriages and sprightly, because people would be coming and going at all times of the day or night. It would seem as if the whole world were on the move.
Restless himself, he went out into the compound and crossed to the great shed. Having thought that young Simnel was happily living every dream he had ever had, he was surprised to come across the engineer sitting beside the throbbing Iron Girder, alone and, there was no other word for it, glum.
Moist automatically stepped into his position as the oil that greased the wheels of progress and said, ‘Something wrong, Dick?’
As if beset by unseen demons, Simnel said sombrely, ‘Well, it’s like this, Mister Lipwig. I were invited along to t’Guild of Cunning Artificers last week, to see Mister Pony, and do you know what? He told me I should get apprenticed to somebody! Me! The lads are coming on fine and should be my apprentices, but it turns out that I’m not a master and so ’ave to be indentured for four years to a real master and then I might just about make a journeyman after a little while. But I told them, I never had indentures, never ’ad a master, because, d’you know for why? I haven’t been an apprentice because there were no one to teach me all the stuff I know. I ’ad to work it out for meself!
‘And then I read about those old guys in Ephebe who once built a little steam engine which worked … and then exploded all over them, although nobody got ’urt, and any road, they were saved because their steam engine were a kind of boat and they all ended up in the water wi’ soggy togas. And then I thought to meself, well, those old guys must’ve known a trick or two and so I got another book about them from t’library in Sto Lat, and you know what, Mister Lipwig? All those old boys wi’ their togas and sandals, they also invented the sine and cosine, not to mention your tangent! All that mathematics, which I love. And then there’s your quaderatics. Can’t get anywhere without quaderatics, can you?
‘And any road, they looked like a bunch of old guys who you’d think would do nowt more than lie about arguing about philosophy and then it turns out that all along they knew just about everything about, well, everything and just wrote it all down. Can you believe it? They ’ad it in their ’ands. They could’ve built a proper steam engine, and steam boats that didn’t explode. That’s academics for you. All that knowing and they went back to discussing t’beauty and truth of numbers and missed the fact that they’d discovered summat reet important. Me? If I want beauty and truth I look at Iron Girder.’
Dick slapped his fist down on the metal carapace and said, ‘There’s beauty. There’s truth, right there. And they had all that knowing ’iding away. Look at ’er! My machine! I built her! Me! And I’m not even good enough to be an apprentice.’
He paused for breath and continued, ‘Now don’t get me wrong, Mister Moist, I know it’s just words but, you see, it’s come home to me that, since I’ve never done me indentures, I can never be a master because there’s nobody who knows more about what I’m doing than, well, me. I’ve looked in all t’manuals and read all t’books and you can’t be a master until all the other masters say you are a master.’
Simnel looked even more haunted while Moist stood with his mouth metaphorically open and listened to the meticulous Mr Simnel blaming himself for being a genius.
He continued, ‘The lads, as I call ’em, could never ’ope to be masters neither because they won’t have been taught engineering by a master! It’s flaming ridiculous!’
Moist burst out laughing and put his hands on Dick’s greasy forehead, carefully turning the lad’s head around to face the length of the compound and the huge ever-present queues for the train ride, and he said quietly, ‘They all know you’re a master and Iron Girder is your masterpiece. What boy would not wish to be you, Mister Simnel, a manmade masterpiece yourself. Do you understand?’
Simnel looked doubtful, possibly still hankering after letters after his name and a certificate for his old mother to hang on her wall.
‘Yes, but with all due respect, the people aren’t authorities on the taming of steam. I mean no offence, like, but what do they know?’
Moist snapped and said, ‘Dick, in some respects down there somewhere is the soul of the world, and they know everything. You’ll have heard of Leonard of Quirm. There are some masters who make themselves and you have, you’ve made yourself an engineer and everybody knows it.’
Simnel brightened and said, ‘I don’t intend on starting me own guild, if that’s what you’re thinking, but if some young lad comes to see me and wants to learn the way of the sliding rule then I’ll do him right. I’ll make ’im an apprentice the old-fashioned way and his hands’ll never be clean again. And I’ll give him indentures until they’re coming out of his flaming teeth, all writ down on vellum, if I can find any. That’s how it should go, and he’ll work for me until I reckon he’s done enough to be a journeyman. That’s how you do it. That’s how you make your trade.
‘When I saw you first, Mister Lipwig, I reckoned you were all mouth and no trousers. And I’ve watched you running around hither and yon and being the grease for the engine of the railway. You ain’t so bad, Mister Lipwig, ain’t so bad at all, but you’d look better with a flatter cap.’
Iron Girder let out a sudden hiss of steam, and the two men, laughing, turned to look at her. There was something new about the engine. Hang on, Moist thought, her shape has changed, hasn’t it? She looks … bigger. I know she’s the prototype and Simnel is forever tweaking things, but somehow I don’t think I ever see the same engine twice. She’s always bigger, better, sleeker.
As Moist was pondering the question he became aware of Simnel beside him shifting from foot to foot. At last Dick said hesitantly, ‘Mister Lipwig, you know that girl with the long blonde hair and pretty smile who sometimes comes into the compound? Who is she? She acts as if she owns the place.’
31
All’s mastery of artery-clogging cuisine had made him a number of friends in interesting places — trading sources for sauces had turned out to be very good business practice.