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and slaving to drive a ship as the other engines he knew--mere
captive devils of the British Solomon--had been, but a machine
enthroned. Those two smaller dynamos, Azuma-zi by force of
contrast despised; the large one he privately christened the Lord
of the Dynamos. They were fretful and irregular, but the big
dynamo was steady. How great it was! How serene and easy in its
working! Greater and calmer even than the Buddhas he had seen at
Rangoon, and yet not motionless, but living! The great black coils
spun, spun, spun, the rings ran round under the brushes, and the
deep note of its coil steadied the whole. It affected Azuma-zi
queerly.
Azuma-zi was not fond of labour. He would sit about and watch
the Lord of the Dynamos while Holroyd went away to persuade the
yard porter to get whisky, although his proper place was not in the
dynamo shed but behind the engines, and, moreover, if Holroyd
caught him skulking he got hit for it with a rod of stout copper
wire. He would go and stand close to the colossus and look up at
the great leather band running overhead. There was a black patch
on the band that came round, and it pleased him somehow among all
the clatter to watch this return again and again. Odd thoughts
spun with the whirl of it. Scientific people tell us that savages
give souls to rocks and trees--and a machine is a thousand times
more alive than a rock or a tree. And Azuma-zi was practically a
savage still; the veneer of civilisation lay no deeper than his
slop suit, his bruises, and the coal grime on his face and hands.
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