Our talk had turned, as always happens with a group of professional men, into more or less technical channels.

I will not say that we were talking shop; the word has an offensive sound and might be misunderstood.

But we were talking as only a group of practising plumbers--including some of the biggest men in the profession--would talk.

With the exception of Everett, who had a national reputation as a Consulting Barber, and Thomas, who was a vacuum cleaner expert, I think we all belonged to the same profession.
We had been holding a convention, and Fortescue, who had one of the biggest furnace practices in the country, had read us a paper that afternoon--a most revolutionary thing--on External Diagnosis of Defective Feed Pipes, and naturally the thing had bred discussion.
Fortescue, who is one of the most brilliant men in the profession, had stoutly maintained his thesis that the only method of diagnosis for trouble in a furnace is to sit down in front of it and look at it for three days; others held out for unscrewing it and carrying it home for consideration; others of us, again, claimed that by tapping the affected spot with a wrench the pipe might be fractured in such a way as to prove that it was breakable.

It was at this point that Thornton interrupted with his remark about never being willing to accept a cellar case.
Naturally all the men turned to look at the speaker.