“Good-night, I am going. Got my bike downstairs. The railway will know where to go for dynamite should we get short at any time. We have done cutting and chopping for a while now. We shall begin soon to blast our way through.”
“Don't come to me,” said Charles Gould, with perfect serenity. “I shan't have an ounce to spare for anybody. Not an ounce. Not for my own brother, if I had a brother, and he were the engineer-in-chief of the most promising railway in the world.”
“What's that?” asked the engineer-in-chief, with equanimity. “Unkindness?”
“No,” said Charles Gould, stolidly. “Policy.”
“Radical, I should think,” the engineer-in-chief observed from the doorway.
“Is that the right name?” Charles Gould said, from the middle of the room.
“I mean, going to the roots, you know,” the engineer explained, with an air of enjoyment.
“Why, yes,” Charles pronounced, slowly. “The Gould Concession has struck such deep roots in this country, in this province, in that gorge of the mountains, that nothing but dynamite shall be allowed to dislodge it from there. It's my choice. It's my last card to play.”
The engineer-in-chief whistled low. “A pretty game,” he said, with a shade of discretion. “And have you told Holroyd of that extraordinary trump card you hold in your hand?”
“Card only when it's played; when it falls at the end of the game. Till then you may call it a—a—”