“And I tell you,” Marek interposed vehemently, “that the Karburator shall be made. I’m in favour of them myself now. I mean to have them precisely because you don’t want them. In spite of you, my Lord Bishop, in spite of all superstition, in spite of all Rome! And I mean to be the first to cry”—here the engineer took breath, then burst out with unmelodious enthusiam—“Success to the Perfect Karburator!”

“We shall see,” said the Bishop with a sigh. “You gentlemen will live to be convinced that the venerable Consistory was right. In a year’s time you will stop the manufacture of the Absolute of your own accord. But, oh, the damage, the devastation it will bring to pass in the meantime! Gentlemen, in the name of Heaven, do not imagine that the Church brings God into the world. The Church merely confines Him and controls Him. And you two unbelievers are loosing Him upon the earth like a flood. The ship of Peter will survive even this deluge; like the Ark of Noah, it will ride out this inundation of the Absolute—but your modern society,” cried the Bishop with a mighty voice, “that will pay the price!”

VI. The Board-Meeting

CHAPTER VI

THE BOARD-MEETING

“GENTLEMEN”—it was G. H. Bondy addressing the meeting of the Board of Directors of the M.E.C. (the Metallo-Electrical Company) held on February 20th—“I have to inform you that one building of our new group of factories at Vysočany has been completed and began production yesterday. In a very few days the standardized production of Karburators will be in full swing, beginning with eighteen finished machines per day. In April we expect to turn out sixty-five per day; by the end of July two hundred per day. We have laid down fifteen kilometres of private line, chiefly for our coal supply. Twelve boiler furnaces are now being erected. We have begun the building of new quarters for our workmen.”

“Twelve boiler furnaces?” Dr. Hubka, the leader of the opposition, asked at a venture.

“Yes, twelve for the time being,” confirmed Bondy.

“That’s strange,” Dr. Hubka declared.

“I ask you, gentlemen,” said Bondy, “what is there strange about having twelve boilers? For a huge group of factories like this . . .”

“Of course, of course,” came from several quarters.

Dr. Hubka smiled ironically.

“And why the fifteen kilometres of railway line?”

“For the transport of coal and raw materials. We are reckoning on a daily consumption of eight truckloads of coal until we have things properly under way. I don’t know what Dr. Hubka’s objection to our getting coal in can be.”