How Crewe Works survived in spite of this "handicap," this "deadly deterrent," is explained by the fact that Mr. Cooke would have none of these things; in fact, sooner than conform to the caprice and tyranny of these "inexpert experts" from without, he very promptly withdrew his offer of steel manufacture, politely but firmly consigning "Major MacMarkfour" and "Captain Fitzgrazefuse" elsewhere, their correspondence to the nearest wastepaper basket; a friendly chat with the late Sir F. Donaldson, then Director of Army Ordnance at Woolwich, sufficing to make it clear that at Crewe everything was strictly "above board," and that the little entourage of professional experts within justified the full and complete confidence which he, their chief, reposed in them. Not a few of the smaller engineering firms up and down the country, faced with previously unconsidered problems created by the unlooked-for transition from peace to war conditions, welcomed the call for shells and yet more shells, as a ray of sunshine peeping from out the lowering clouds of commercial stagnation. Hardly appreciating the fact that a shell's a shell for a' that, and approaching the task with a flippant disdain, akin to that of "selling seashells upon the seashore," some of these good people, ostensibly patriotic and avowedly disinterested, were soon asking themselves whether after all they had not bitten off as much as, if not actually more than, they could reasonably chew. The requisite degree of perfection in material, and of accuracy in machining, was at the outset a sore puzzle to the many who had never seen a field-battery in action, who had never inquired as to the why and wherefore of the flight of a shell, who, by virtue of their exemption from military service, never had occasion to congratulate themselves personally on the subtle and unfailing precision of a creeping "barrage"; and great was the vexation of spirit, many the hours thrown away, legion the shells definitely consigned to the scrap-heap (or perhaps at best set aside pending some seemingly trifling rectification), ere aspirants to this novel and exacting sphere of machine-shop art attained anything approaching the acmé of perfection.