M. Beloiseau reached across his workbench and hung up his hammer and tongs¹. The varied² notes of two or three remote steam-whistles told him that the hour, of the day after the holiday, was five.  
He glanced behind him, through his shop to the street door, where some one paused awaiting his welcome. He thought of Chester but it was Landry, with an old broad book under his elbow.
 
"Ah, come in, Ovide."
 
As he laid aside his apron³ he handed the visitor the piece of metal he had been making beautiful, and waved him to the drawing whose lines it was taking.
 
"But those whistles," the bookman said, "they stop the handworkman too."
 
"Yes. In the days of my father, the days of handwork, they meant only steamboat', coming, going; but now swarm⁴' of men and women, boys, and girl', coming, going, living by machinery⁵ the machine-made life."
 
"'Sieur Beloiseau," Landry good-naturedly, said, "you're too just to condemn⁶ a gift of the good God for the misuse⁷ men make of it."
 
Scipion glared and smiled at the same time: "Then let that gift of the good God be not so hideouzly misuse'."
 
But Ovide amiably⁸ persisted: "Without machinery--plenty of it--I should not have this book for you, nor I, nor you, ever have been born."
 
Chester, entering, found Beloiseau looking eagerly into the volume. "All the same, Landry," the newcomer said, "you're no more a machine product than Mr. Beloiseau himself."
 
The bookman smiled his thanks while he followed the craftsman's scrutiny⁹ of the pages. "'Tis what you want?" he asked, and Chester saw that it was full of designs of ironwork, French and Spanish.
 
Scipion beamed: "Ah, you've foun' me that at the lazt, and just when I'm wanting it furiouzly."
 
"Mr. Beloiseau," said Chester, "has a beautiful commission from the new Pan-American Steamship¹⁰ Company."
 
"Thanks to Mr. Chezter,&q............