“Eet is moz’ in’ospitable, but in five minute ze men will fire ze blast,” he announced. “Me, I am désolé to ’ave to h’ask you zhentlemen to go h’out, mais——”
“But we’d better go out if we don’t want to get our necks stretched, eh?” laughed the visiting overlord. “That’s all right, Regnier; we’ve seen all we need to, I guess.” And the retreat was made so hurriedly that David had no chance to inspect the dangerous spot in the roof, or to call the president’s attention to it, as he had fully intended doing.
These were the commonplace incidents of the day of inspections, and there were no other kind. But when the day was ended, and David Vallory was once more finding a reward for duty done in an ecstatic hour with Virginia on the Inn porch, it is conceivable that the joy-nerve might have lost some of its thrills if he could have been endowed with the gift of double personality, enabling him to see and hear what was transpiring coincidently in the Grillage private Pullman at the foot of the ridge. In the open central compartment of the car Plegg was once more under fire, and the special target of the bombardment was his estimate of the bad roof in tunnel heading Number One.
“You are losing your sand, Plegg, the same as young Altman did,” Grillage was asserting bluntly. “I took the chance you made for me this morning and had a good look at that ‘fault’ while you were holding Vallory at the portal. In spite of your test-borings, and all that you’ve had to say about it, I say the roof will stay up while we’re driving. If the railroad company wants to concrete it after we’re through, that’s a horse of another color. We’re not hunting for a chance to throw good money away.”
“I know,” said Plegg, almost humbly.
“How did you manage to get Altman out and Regnier in?”
“The change was made to-day and Vallory authorized it. Altman went over my head last night and took his complaint to Vallory, though I had warned him not to. A little later Vallory fell upon me and wanted to know why I hadn’t ordered the weak spot timbered. I smoothed it over as well as I could; gave him a hint of the use Lushing might make of it if we should advertise the weak spot by timbering it. He saw the point after a while and told me to shift Altman and put Regnier in. But I had to lie to him to bring it about.”
“Bosh! That roof isn’t coming down. You’ve been letting Altman’s nerves put one across on yours!”
It was just here that the first assistant took his courage in both hands.
“I know what I know; and you know it, as well, Mr. Grillage,” he said. “The test drillings showed up the conditions plainly enough, as I wrote you at the time. That entire crevice is filled with loose material that is certain to come down, sooner or later. Why not go to the railroad people frankly, show them what we’re up against, and try to persuade them to let us concrete that break on force account, with the cost of doing it added to our estimate?”