igh Pit to rights." "Yes, sir," said George.
"I think I could." "If that's the case, I'll give you a fair trial, and
you must set to work immediately. We are clean drowned out, and cannot
get a stop further. The engineers hereabouts are all bet; and if you
really succeed in accomplishing what they cannot do, you may depend upon
it I will make you a man for life."

Stephenson began his operations early next morning. The only condition
that he made, before setting to work, was that he should select his own
workmen. There was, as he knew, a good deal of jealousy amongst the
"regular" men that a colliery brakesman should pretend to know more about
their engine than they themselves did, and attempt to remedy defects
which the most skilled men of their craft, including the engineer of the
colliery, had failed to do. But George made the condition a _sine qua
non_. "The workmen," said he, "must either be all Whigs or all Tories."
There was no help for it, so Dodds ordered the old hands to stand aside.
The men grumbled, but gave way; and then George and his party went in.

The engine was taken entirely to pieces. The cistern containing the
injection water was raised ten feet; the injection cock, being too small,
was enlarged to nearly double its former size, and it was so arranged
that it should be shut off quickly at the beginning of the stroke. These
and other alterations were necessarily performed in a rough way, but, as
the result proved, on true principles. Stephenson also, finding that the
boiler would bear a greater pressure than five pounds to the inch,
determined to work it at a pressure of ten pounds, though this was
contrary to the directions of both Newcomen and Smeaton. The necessary
alterations were made in about three days, and many persons came to see
the engine start, including the men who had put her up. The pit being
nearly full of water, she had little to do on starting, and, to use
George's words, "came bounce into the house." Dodds exclaimed, "Why, she
was better as she was; now, she will knock the house down." After a
short time, however, the engine got fairly to work, and by ten o'clock
that night the water was lower in the pit than it had ever been before.
It was kept pumping all Thursday, and by the Friday afternoon the pit was
cleared of water, and the workmen were "sent to the bottom," as
Stephenson had promised. Thus the alterations effected in the pumping
apparatus proved completely