Towards Christmas my dear father came to see me, and to consult
Mr Holdsworth about the improvement which has since been known as
'Manning's driving wheel'. Mr Holdsworth, as I think I have
before said, had a very great regard for my father, who had been
employed in the same great machine-shop in which Mr Holdsworth
had served his apprenticeship; and he and my father had many
mutual jokes about one of these gentlemen-apprentices who used to
set about his smith's work in white wash-leather gloves, for fear
of spoiling his hands. Mr Holdsworth often spoke to me about my
father as having the same kind of genius for mechanical invention
as that of George Stephenson, and my father had come over now to
consult him about several improvements, as well as an offer of
partnership. It was a great pleasure to me to see the mutual
regard of these two men. Mr Holdsworth, young, handsome, keen,
well-dressed, an object of admiration to all the youth of Eltham;
my father, in his decent but unfashionable Sunday clothes, his
plain, sensible face full of hard lines, the marks of toil and
thought,--his hands, blackened beyond the power of soap and water
by years of labour in the foundry; speaking a strong Northern
dialect, while Mr Holdsworth had a long soft drawl in his voice,
as many of the Southerners have, and was reckoned in Eltham to
give himself airs.
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