"But
I've heard so much about that affair that----"
"Oh, I don't mind talking about it," replied Cobcroft. He leaned over
the fence of his garden, still gazing at the mill in the distance.
"There were others that saw it, of course: lots of 'em. But I was close
at hand--our office was filled with the dust in a few seconds."
"It was a sudden affair?" asked Collingwood.
"It was one of those affairs," answered Cobcroft slowly, "that some folk
had been expecting for a long time--only nobody had the sense to see
that it might happen at some unexpected minute. It was a very old
chimney. It looked all right--stood plumb, and all that. But Mr.
Mallathorpe--my old master, Mr. John Mallathorpe, I'm talking of--he got
an idea from two or three little things, d'ye see, that it wasn't as
safe as it ought to be. And he got a couple of these professional
steeplejacks to examine it. They made a thorough examination, too--so
far as one could tell by what they did. They'd been at the job several
days when the accident happened. One of 'em had only just come down when
the chimney fell. Mr. Mallathorpe, himself, and his manager, and his
cashier, had just stepped out of the counting-house and crossed the yard
to hear what this man had got to say when--down it came! Not the
slightest warning at the time. It just--collapsed!"
"You saw the actual collapse?" asked Collingwood.
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