"That is a fair question, and I can answer it straight," said the man under fire. "I've had the experience."
"I thought so; and that brings on more talk. I'm not authorized to make you any proposal. But Colonel Baldwin and I were talking the matter over yesterday and your name was mentioned. I told the colonel that it was very evident that you were accustomed to handling bigger financial matters than these labor-and-material cost-cuttings you've been figuring on out here. If the colonel should ask you to, would you consider as a possibility the taking of the doctor's job on this sick project of ours?"
"No," was the brief rejoinder.
"Why not?"
Smith looked away out of the one square window in the shack at the busy scene on the dam stagings.
"Let us say that I don't care to mix and mingle with my kind, Mr. Williams, and let it go at that," he said.
"You are not interested in that side of it?"
"Interested, but not to the point of enlisting."
"You don't think of anything that might make you change your mind?"
"There is nothing that you could offer which would be a sufficient inducement."