"I'm listening," was the non-committal reply.
"Well, enough's enough, and too much of a good thing scalds the hog before you're ready to dress it and cut it up. It's all right for you to run men in here by the train load and scatter 'em out over your scaffolding—the more the merrier, and it's good for the town—but you needn't sweat the last shovelful of hurry out of them the way you're doing. It won't do to get your job finished too soon."
"Before Congress convenes, you mean?" suggested Brouillard.
"That's just what I mean. String it out. Make it last."
Brouillard sat back in his pivot chair and began to play with the paper-knife.
"And if I don't choose to 'string it out'—if I even confess that I am straining every nerve to do this thing that you don't want me to do—what then, Mr. Cortwright?"
The quiet retort jolted the stocky man in the arm chair as if it had been a blow. But he recovered quickly.
"I've been looking for that," he said with a nervous twinkling of the little gray eyes. "You've no business being out of business, Brouillard. If you'd quit puddling sand and cement and little rocks together and strike your gait right in ten years you'd be the richest man this side of the mountains. I'll be open-handed with you: this time you've got us where we can't wiggle. We've got to have more time. How much is it going to cost us?"
Brouillard shook his head slowly.
"Odd as it may seem to you, I'm out of your market this time, Mr. Cortwright—quite out of it."