could, and what he had laid by to take him and family 

 to America. 



When I got a chance to get in a word, I asked if he 

 could tell me how long paper was made, and how the 

 sheets were united so we could not discover the joints. 



"Why bless you! they don't make sheets on paper 

 moulds at all; it is just a long wire web, sewed 

 together at the ends; and it goes over rollers right 

 along, and the stuff runs onto it, and it shakes both 

 ways, just like the mould; and it goes along, and 

 the pulp is pressed on the felt by rollers; and so on 

 it goes to the steam drying cylinders, and comes out 

 paper — dry paper." 



"How very curious! I should like so much to 

 see it." 



He said, "I would like to show it to you; and then 

 you could tell John you had seen the machine I am 

 boss of. But it would be all my place is worth, if the 

 master found me out. He won't let anybody see 

 anything in his mill. He is afraid they will steal his 

 secrets. And today he is on the rampage; he has 

 been cursing me, just because the color of the paper 

 is a shade lighter than he intended, and I said it was 

 not in the color he had put in. but in the new bleach 

 he was trying; and the master don't like anyone to 

 know anything but himself." We were by this time 

 at the plank over the race, and I noticed how nerv- 

 ously the man was watching the turns of the Maid- 

 stone road; and I must confess to doing so myself. 



I thanked him for the information he had given as 

 to how long paper was made. I handed him a half 

 dollar, telling him ii was an American coin, given as 

 a remembrancer of the American, who would cer- 

 tainly tell Hanlon that his friend was saving up to go 

 to America. I then asked him if he had time to begin 

 at the beginning and again tell me how the long paper 

 was made; that I had been greatly interested in what 

 he had told me, and 1 should like to know if they 

 sifted the rags after they were ground, like flour was 

 sifted in the corn mills? 



Instead of answering, he asked if I could walk that 

 plank — it was not strung enough to carry two. or he 

 could steady me. H 

 in his room 



him, for he was their boss, and they all hated the 

 master like poison; but I could not stop over a minute 

 or two. as the master might come back sooner than 

 usual. He tripped over the plank, and I followed, 

 feeling almost as guilty as if committing a burglar}'. 



had three men and four girls 

 There was no danger of their telling on 



We walked by the dryers and machine to the vat 

 where the pulp dresser was working. The man, 

 paper maker like, took up a handful of the dilute 

 pulp, squeezed the water out of it, and handed it to 

 me. I did the same, taking care that it was from the 

 knot receptacle, for future examination. 



Having seen all I wanted, I was in haste to get out, 

 hurried on a short cut through a hop field, and came 

 out through a hedge-gate onto the public road about 

 a quarter of a mile from the mill, just as Crusty passed 

 on his return. 



The pulp dresser was a decided infringement on 

 Ibotson's patent, differing in being circular with 

 annular slits, instead of rectangular with bars and 

 straight slits. The screening was done by the same 

 up and down jogging motion precisely by the same 

 means as Ibotson's; but it had in addition what was 

 injurious instead of beneficial — an automatically 

 revolving wiper to clean the surface of the screen and 

 carry the knots into a receptable, from which they 

 were taken back to the beating engine to be reground. 

 This constant brushing made rolls of pulp and pressed 

 fibers into the slits, clogging the screen and requiring 

 more frequent cleaning than the lbotson. 



I returned to London the same evening. Mr. 

 Donkin was much amused at my description of my 

 interview with Crusty, and gratified at the result of 

 the venture. The arrangement that had mainly been 

 made by his intervention with lbotson was carried 

 out. After my return home I learned that the 

 information gained, and the sketch I made showing 

 the infringement, had enabled such a presentation to 

 I >e made that legal proceedings were avoided by 

 Mr. Donkin replacing the machine I had seen with 

 an lbotson. 



During about a week that I remained in London. I 

 had several very pleasant interviews with Mr. Donkin, 

 all strengthening the opinion I have previously 

 expressed, that he was the most advanced mechanical 

 engineer of the time, and it is to his inventive ability, 

 zeal and persistent application through a period of 

 over 30 years, that the world is indebted for the per- 

 fecting of the crude ideas of Robert and Didot, and 

 producing the self-acting endless web paper machine 

 in such perfection by the year 1832, that in the 54 

 subsequent years no essential changes have been made, 

 and now the great bulk of the paper of the world is 

 produced on machines substantially as they came 

 frcm his brain and hands at that early period. [48I 



130 



