tool-shop near by there are a hundred and fifty men, all skilled mechanics, having served seven years to their trade, and earning one-and-sixpence an hour. They have intricate drawings before them in white lines on blue paper, and are working with the precision and delicacy of the makers of watches and chronometers. The manager of their tool-shop is said to be one of the best mechanics in London, which means one of the best in Europe. He looks like five-and-thirty, and few of his men seem to be older. But let there be no talk of combing out men like these. Too many of their comrades enlisted at the beginning of the war, and are now lying under the sod in Flanders, and if you remove these men the women cannot be expected to replace them. Yet so closely co-ordinated, so deftly dovetailed, are the many processes in the manufacture of shells that if one process fails, or is even temporarily arrested, the long wave of production is broken and the output goes down.
