Paul's when he was in London."

"He told me that the first time he went into the engine-room of a
steamer, when he was a boy, he prayed to the low-pressure cylinder."

"Not half a bad thing to pray to, either. He's propitiating his own
Gods now, and he wants to know what Mother Gunga will think of a
bridge being run across her. Who's there?" A shadow darkened the
doorway, and a telegram was put into Hitchcock's hand.

"She ought to be pretty well used to it by this time. Only a tar.
It ought to be Ralli's answer about the new rivets . . . . Great
Heavens!" Hitchcock jumped to his feet.

"What is it?" said the senior, and took the form. "That's what
Mother Gunga thinks, is it," he said, reading. "Keep cool, young'un.
We've got all our work cut out for us. Let's see. Muir wired half
an hour ago: 'Floods on the Ramgunga. Look out.' Well, that gives
us - one, two - nine and a half for the flood to reach Melipur Ghaut
and seven's sixteen and a half to Lataoli - say fifteen hours before
it comes down to us."

"Curse that hill-fed sewer of a Ramgunga! Findlayson, this is two
months before anything could have been expected, and the left bank
is littered up with stuff still. Two full months before the time!"

" That's why it comes. I've only known Indian rivers for
five-and-twenty years, and I don't pretend to understand. Here comes
another tar." Findlayson opened the telegram. "Cockran, this time,
from the Ganges Canal: 'Heavy rains here. Bad.' He might have saved