The Glass Spindle

A private laboratory in a house near Newcastle on a winter evening, a paraffin lamp on a back shelf, on a scrubbed table an early incandescent lamp fifteen centimetres high, a spindle-shaped glass bulb tapering to points at both ends, inside it an upright carbon rod glowing deep orange, a curved glass stem at its lower side, the bulb hanging from a flat S-curved brass strip rising from a small wooden block, two knurled brass terminals on a mahogany board with a bevelled edge, behind it the glass tubes of a vacuum pump, at the lower right edge only two hands in dark wool sleeves bending a fine thread.