After tea, Sir Brooke suggested the younger people accompany him to one of his factories on the edge of town. Walking outside, they found the rain stopped.

Brooke had leased a carriage for the day. The driver sat up front with two horses attached. He jumped down when the trio walked out the front door and opened the carriage door. Then he placed a step in front of it so everyone could enter easily.

Brooke gave the driver an address south of town, which ended up quite a ways from the townhouse. He used the time to query Rip further about his own world.

An hour later he came to a conclusion.

“I get the feeling, Sir Coulter, you are holding back quite a bit in your descriptions.”

Rip shrugged and replied, “That’s only because some of the more whiz-bang things you don’t really have any reference for. I think you could understand airplanes, where internal combustion engines twirl a forward-facing propeller fast enough to provide lift to the wings.”

“Certainly.”

“How about jet engines, where the ‘propellers’ are internal and can propel the plane faster than the speed of sound? How about advanced rockets that can take people to the moon and back?”

To this, Brooke did not reply.

“And my work environment was purely virtual. I engaged in war online. See? You have no reference. It was a world of electrons, in which my conscious self led others in battles that occurred inside highly advanced tabulators. So, it’s a little more difficult to describe these scenarios. Even the term ‘tabulator’ does not do our computers and the internet justice. But it’s the closest thing you have for comparison purposes.”

“Hm. Fascinating. Perhaps you are right. Electronic battles with only your conscious mind is indeed beyond our world’s present technology. But maybe you could provide us with some more mundane ideas for improvement.”

Rip chuckled and shared the story about the “OK Charge Phone” with them, and how a couple men rushed out of the marketplace discussing filing a patent for it.

Brooke waved a dismissive hand and said, “I have several barristers on retainer who can immediately file whatever patents are needed. As the initiator of any improvements you share, I will happily grant you 25 percent of our profits.”

“Father!”

He glared at Blair.

“Fine, 50 percent. But only because I hope the suggestions you offer will make it worth my time and effort in capitalizing on the new items. It takes a bit to set up a factory, you know.”

At last, they arrived in an industrial district. Rip noted smokestacks carried thick clouds of black soot up and away, and he thought back on what he knew about the start of the Industrial Revolution.

The carriage came to a stop in front of the entrance to one of these factories. The driver set the brake and hopped down. He produced the step once more and opened the door.

Everyone exited. Rip looked around while Sir Brooke went straight for the door with his daughter following. Rip hurried to catch up, and followed them inside.

The office reminded him of a disturbed ant pile. Everybody ran to and fro, with a middle-aged man who looked like a manager doing his knuckle-scraping best to greet Sir Brooke. He walked backward while talking, going altogether too fast.

Brooke stopped him with a curt wave of his hand.

“Enough, Mr. Douglass. This is my daughter, who you know. And this is my special guest, the otherworlder Sir Ripley Coulter.”

The manager turned to Rip for the first time and his eyes grew big.

Rip noted he dressed in a white cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a suit vest with no tie. Smudges on the sleeves indicated that if Douglass could be called “white collar,” he also spent time on the factory floor getting dirty with everyone else.

Rip flashed him a winning smile. The man stared back, dumbfounded.

Brooke snapped his fingers in the man’s face and said, “Mr. Douglass. Give us a tour of the factory. Tell Sir Coulter here everything we do.”

“Yes, sir. Of course.”

An hour later, Rip had a good idea of what purpose the factor served.

“So, you make petroleum byproducts.”

“Grease, Sir Coulter. And yes, to a lesser extent we refine oil and extract the baser portions for various purposes.”

They were now outside, in the back of the factory. Here, giant vats sat filled with oil.

“The oil separates naturally. Heavier parts go to the bottom of the vats while lighter parts rise to the top. We take what is needed for grease and other products while different Brooke Industries facilities use the rest.”

Rip rubbed his chin, looking up at the large metal vats. They rose 30 feet in the air, and had markings to indicate different weights of oil.

“Any sudden ideas, Sir Coulter?” Brooke said.

Blair smiled, looking at him.

“I’m wondering if you guys have developed petroleum jelly yet.”

Judging by the looks all three gave him, he decided they did not.

“It might be called something different, like paraffin, or oil wax. Anyway, if you refine it, you get a light colored jelly-like substance. It has excellent medical uses. Good for burns, rashes, wounds. I’m thinking that it will greatly assist in First Aid on the battlefield, especially if healing potions are not available to commoners.”

“Healing potions?”

Blair took a moment to explain to the men the efforts at the Lyceum to create tonics that would restore instant health. When Brooke heard the Lyceum was behind it, he dismissed trying to poach their secrets.

“They have more barristers than anyone, save maybe Parliament. So, it sounds like this petroleum jelly is rather easy to extract. What do you think, Mr. Douglass?”

Douglass, who had listened with a wrinkled brow, looked thoughtful.

“Aye, the idea has merit. If it can be processed we could perhaps sell it. Certainly it would be inexpensive to obtain the product.”

“There are other things you can do with it, too. In separate bottles, you can add a little camphor and menthol to the mixture, maybe some eucalyptus oil. It will help anyone with a cough. Rub it on their chest and let them sleep. Does wonders for the lungs.”

Now all three had wider eyes.

“That might greatly help with consumption,” Blair said.

“Yeah. There’s your marketing angle. ‘Smells like the tropics,’ or something.”

Blair walked beside him while the older men followed as everyone returned to the building.

Douglass whispered, “What’s marketing?”

Brooke said, “I’m not sure, but I think it will help us make a lot more money.”