"Oh, ho! Golemar! He wan' to know. Shall we tell heem, eh? Ah, oui—" he shook his big shoulders and spread his hands. "Eet is—the copy of the bid!"
"The copy? The bid?"
"From the Blackburn mill. There is no one aroun'. Ba'teese, he go through a window. Ba'teese, he find heem—in a file. And he bring back the copy."
"Then—"
"M'sieu Houston, he too will bid. But he will make it lower. And this," he tapped the scribbled scraps of paper, "is cheaper than any one else. Eet is because of the location. M'sieu Houston—he know what they bid. He will make eet cheaper."
"But what with, Ba'tiste? We haven't a mill to saw the stuff, in the first place. This ramshackle thing we're setting up now couldn't even begin to turn out the ties alone. The bid calls for ten thousand laid down at Tabernacle, the first of June. We might do that, but how on earth would we ever keep up with the rest? The boxings, the rough lumber, the two by fourteen's finished, the dropped sidings and groved roofing, and lath and ceiling and rough fencings and all the rest? What on earth will we do it with?"
"What with?" Ba'tiste waved an arm grandiloquently. "With the future!"
"It's taking the longest kind of a chance—"
"Ah, oui! But the man who is drowning, he will, what-you-say, grab at a haystack."
"True enough. Go ahead. I'll mark our figures down too, as you read."