Can't even call Stefan by his name. Gerd snorted. "What does it look like, Horst? He's taking down the belt from that generator of yours."

"Hah? What about the test run? I'm certainly not going to pay you if you don't turn it."

"I'd like to get paid, all right, but I haven't the least desire to have my mill burned down. Take a look at this. Take a good look. This thing was on fire when we stopped it."

"The switchboard? On fire? What did you do?"

"We started the wheel when your foreman Theodor signaled. Then we stopped it when the pulley started screeching and this thing caught fire, and we put out the flames. Enough, Winkler! I'm through letting you and your men just try things in my mill with this new machinery when you obviously don't know what you're doing. Get somebody up here who understands this." His voice rose to a roar. "And by God, no more 'quick tests' without a proper belt release lever!"

The shouting match went on for ten minutes while Stefan finished taking down the belt and stowed it behind the generator.

" Well? What's wrong here?"

Winkler was standing with his arms folded and a scowl on his bewhiskered face.

Gerd silently fumed. This was just typical. What a way to speak to a man who came all this way to help!

The young Dutchman-he'd introduced himself as Jan Willem Bosboom, a "field engineer" from American Electric Works-straightened up from examining the insides of the switchboard. He just shook his head. "Quite a lot, Herr Winkler. Quite a lot. But this -" He pointed at a large porcelain block. "-is why the damage went so far. These load wires are supposed to be connected to the bottom end of the fuse holder. They're connected to the top instead."

"We tried that. Those little pewter ribbons on it are too weak. They kept melting."

"Well, I should hope so! That's what they're there for. They're supposed to disconnect the circuit when the load is too great, so that this -" Bosboom gestured open-handed toward the remains. "-doesn't happen. The instruction sheet explains all that. You did read it, didn't you?"