His anxiety was marked by a total change in his habits. Hitherto, he had sat in his office, directing from afar all the multitudinous activities of the Area, aloof from direct contact with details. Now, I noticed, he was continually about the machine-shops and factories in which the new atomic engines were being constructed; he had frequent consultations with his engineers and designers; he seemed to be incapable of isolating himself from the progress which was very slowly being made. Possibly he felt that in this last effort he must utilise all the magnetic power of his personality to stimulate his craftsmen in their labours. Whatever his motives may have been, when I think of him in those last days my memory always calls up a picture of that lean, dark figure against a background of drawing-office or engineering-shop. I see him discussing plans with his inventors, encouraging his workmen, watching the trial of engine after engine. And after every failure I seem to see him a little more weary, with a grimmer set in the lines about his mouth and a heavier stoop in his shoulders, as though the weight of his responsibilities was crushing him by degrees as the days went by. Yet he never outwardly wavered in his belief in success. He knew--we all knew--that the power was there if we could but find the means of harnessing it. The uncertainty had gone; and all that remained was a problem in chemistry and mechanics. But time was a vital factor to us; and more than once I myself began to doubt whether we should succeed in our efforts before it was too late. * * * * * At last came success. One of my most vivid memories of that time is the scene in Beardmore’s yard when the Milne-Reid engine was tested for the first time. Nordenholt and I had motored down from the University to see the trial. By this time we were both familiar with the general appearance of atomic engines; but to me, at least, the new machine was a surprise. Its huge, distorted bulk seemed unlike anything which I had seen before: the enormous barrel of the disintegration-chamber overhung the main mass of machinery and gave it in some way a far-off resemblance to a gigantic howitzer on its carriage; and this resemblance was heightened by the absence of flywheels or any of the usual fittings of an engine. Although I was an engineer, I could make but little of this complex instrument, designed to utilise a power greater than any I had ever dreamed of; and I listened eagerly to the two inventors as they described its salient characteristics. Nordenholt, who had seen the plans, seemed to pay little attention to either Milne or Reid. He was evidently impatient for results and cared little for the methods by which they were to be obtained, so long as the machinery did its work.