Hardly had he slipped off his boots and tarpaulins when MacFarlane, in mackintosh and long rubber boots, splashed in:
“Breen,” said his Chief, loosening the top button of his storm coat and threshing the water from his cap:
Jack was on his feet in an instant:
“Yes, sir.”
“I wish you would take a look at the boulevard spillway. I know McGowan's work and how he skins it sometimes, and I'm getting worried. Coggins says the water is backing up, and that the slopes are giving way. You can see yourself what a lot of water is coming down—” here they both gazed through the open window. “I never saw that stream look like that since I've been here; there must be a frightful pressure now on McGowan's retaining walls. We should have a close shave if anything gave way above us. Our own culvert's working all right, but it's taxed now to its utmost.”
Jack unhooked his water-proof from a nail behind the door—he had began putting on his rubber boots again before MacFarlane finished speaking.
“He will have to pay the bills, sir, if anything gives way—” Jack replied in a determined voice. “Garry told me only last week that McGowan had to take care of his own water; that was part of his contract. It comes under Garry's supervision, you know.”
“Yes, I know, and that may all be so, Breen,” he replied with a flickering smile, “but it won't do us any good,—or the road either. They want to run cars next month.”
The door again swung wide, and a man drenched to the skin, the water glistening on his bushy gray beard stepped in.
“I heard you were here, sir, and had to see you. There's only four feet lee-way in our culvert, sir, and the scour's eating into the underpinning; I am just up from there. We are trying bags of cement, but it doesn't do much good.”