CHAPTER VI THE END OF THE CHASE"That is easy. I had no desire to speak of my humble past. I was brought up near that flower farm where Mme. Lalage made that marvellous perfume. I am passionately fond of it, the more so that you cannot get it now. I use it sometimes in the evening after the others have gone to bed. But how did you know----"Bruce held up his hand for silence.
A great share of the handling about an engineering establishment is avoided, if material can be stored and received on a higher level than the working floors; if, for instance, coal, iron, and sand is received from railway cars at an elevation sufficient to allow it to be deposited where it is stored by gravity, it is equivalent to saving the power and expense required to raise the material to such a height, or move it and pile it up, which amounts to the same thing in the end. It is not proposed to follow the details [74] of shop arrangement, farther than to furnish a clue to some of the general principles that should be regarded in devising plans of arrangement. Such principles are much more to be relied upon than even experience in suggesting the arrangement of shops, because all experience must be gained in connection with special local conditions, which often warp and prejudice the judgment, and lead to error in forming plans under circumstances different from those where the experience was gained.We have assumed in our last remark that it is possible to discover some sort of chronological order in the Platonic Dialogues, and to trace a certain progressive modification in the general tenor of their teaching from first to last. But here also the positive evidence is very scanty, and a variety of conflicting theories have been propounded by eminent scholars. Where so much is left to conjecture, the best that can be said for any hypothesis is that it explains the facts according to known laws of thought. It will be for the reader to judge whether our own attempt to trace the gradual evolution of Platos system satisfies this condition. In making it we shall take as a basis the arrangement adopted by Prof. Jowett, with some reservations hereafter to be specified.I have, happily, not seen much of the distressing flight of the Antwerp population, as I happened to be at Lige when the fortress fell into German hands. I went to Zundert via Maastricht and Breda, in order to go to the conquered fortress from that Netherland frontier-town, north-east of Antwerp."I desire to be sworn, sir," he said. "It so happens that I can throw a little light on this matter. I did not leave the office of my paper till four in the morning of the day to which this young lady alludes. The clock on Gregory's store struck five as I reached Garrett Street, which, as you know, runs into Raven Street. A few seconds later a fast motor passed me without the slightest noise."I went to various other places, but there I could not even get a bit of bacon. So I made up my mind to starve for the present, and to make inquiries here and there about families whose acquaintances or friends had asked me to do so through the editor of De Tijd.
