The bovine mind goes to sleep under a hedge and makes no bones
about it when it's shouted at. We've seen _that_--in haying-time--all
along the meadows. The finer type is wide awake enough to fudge up excuses
for shirking, and mean enough to get stuffy when its excuses aren't
accepted. Turn over!"
"But, my good people, no gentleman gets stuffy as you call it. A certain
proper pride, to put it no higher, forbids---"
"Nothing that he wants to do if he really wants to do it. Get along! What
are you giving us? D'you suppose we've scoured half heaven in the clouds,
and half earth in the mists, to be taken in at this time of the day by a
bone-idle, old hand-quern of your type?"
"It is not for me to bandy personalities with you. I can only say that I
simply decline to accept the situation."
"Decline away. It doesn't make any odds. They'll probably put in a turbine
if you decline too much."
"What's a turbine?" said the Wheel, quickly.
"A little thing you don't see, that performs surprising revolutions. But
you won't decline. You'll hang on to your two nice red-strapped axles and
your new machine-moulded pinions like--a--like a leech on a lily stem!
There's centuries of work in your old bones if you'd only apply yourself
to it; and, mechanically, an overshot wheel with this head of water is
about as efficient as a turbine."
"So in future I am to be considered mechanically? I have been painted by
at least five Royal Academicians.
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