“There’s no doubt we’ll have plenty of that,” said Sanford, with a slight touch of anxiety in his tones. “And now about the working force. Will you make many changes?” he asked.
“No, sir. We’ll put Caleb West in charge of the divin’; ain’t no better man’n Caleb in or out a dress. Them enrockments is mighty ugly things to set under water, an’ I won’t trust nobody but Caleb to do it. Lonny Bowles’ll help tend derricks; an’ there’s our regular gang,—George Nickles an’ the rest of ’em. I only got one new man so far: that’s a young feller named Bill Lacey. He looks like a skylarkin’ chap, but I kin take that out o’ him. He kin climb like a cat, an’ we want a man like that to shin the derricks. He’s tended divers, too, he says, an’ he’ll do to look after Caleb’s life-line an’ hose when I can’t. By the way, sir, I forgot to ask ye about them derricks. We got to hev four whackin’ big sticks to set them big stone on top o’ the concrete when we git it finished, an’ there ain’t no time to lose on ’em. I thought maybe ye’d order ’em to-day from Medford?”
While Sanford was writing a telegram to a shipbuilder at Medford ordering “four clean, straight, white pine masts not less than twenty inches at the butt,” and delivering it to his negro servant, Sam, whom he called from the adjoining room, Captain Joe had arisen from his chair and had taken down his pea-jacket and Derby hat, without which he never came to New York,—it was his one concession to metropolitan exactions: the incongruity between the pea-jacket and the Derby hat always delighted Sanford.
“But, Captain Joe,” said Sanford, looking up, “you mustn’t go; breakfast will be ready in a minute. Young Mr. Hardy is coming, whom you met here once before. He wants to meet you again.”
“Not this mornin’, sir. I’ve got a lot o’ things to look after ’fore I catch the three-ten. I’m obleeged to ye all the same,” and he humped his arms and shoulders into his weather-beaten pea-jacket and picked up the tin case.
“Well, I wish you would,” said Sanford, with a hand on the captain’s shoulder, and real disappointment in his tone, “but you know best, I suppose.”
With the big brown hand of the captain in his own he followed him to the top of the stairs, where he stood watching the burly figure descending the spiral staircase, the tin case under his arm, spy-glass fashion.
“You’ll see me in the morning, captain,” Sanford called out, not wanting him to go without another word. “I’ll come by the midnight train.”
The captain looked up and waved his hand cheerily in lieu of a reply.
Sanford waited until the turn of the staircase hid him from view, then turned, and, drawing the heavy curtains of the vestibule, passed through it to his private apartments, flooded with the morning light.