town beyond, its tiled roofs wreathed in smoke, through which the
afternoon lights are playing. I am carried off to a friend's house. Some
directors of the great works I am come to see look in to make a kindly
plan for the morrow, and in the evening, I find myself sitting next one of
the most illustrious of modern inventors, with that touch of _dream_ in
manner and look which so often goes with scientific discovery. The
invention of this gentle and courteous man has affected every vessel of
any size afloat, whether for war or trade, and the whole electrical
development of the world. The fact was to be driven home even to my
feminine ignorance of mechanics when, a fortnight later, the captain of a
Flag-ship and I were hanging over the huge shaft leading down to the
engine-rooms of the Super-dreadnought, and my companion was explaining to
me something of the driving power of the ship. But on this first meeting,
how much I might have asked of the kind, great man beside me, and was too
preoccupied to ask! May the opportunity be retrieved some day! My head was
really full of the overwhelming facts, whether of labour or of output,
relating to this world-famous place, which were being discussed around me.
I do not name the place, because the banishment of names, whether of
persons or places, has been part of the plan of these articles. But one
can no more disguise it by writing round it than one could disguise
Windsor Castle by any description that was not ridiculous. Many a German
officer has walked through these works, I imagine, before the war, smoking
the cigarette of peace with their Directors, and inwardly ruminating
strange thoughts. If any such comes across these few lines, what I have
written will, I think, do England no harm.

But here are some of the figures that can be given. The shop area of the
ammunition shops alone has been increased _eightfold_ since the outbreak
of war. The total weight of shell delivered during 1915 was--in
tons--fourteen times as much as that of 1914. The weight of shell