“Well, Fred,” Frank began, “I congratulate you as well as myself, that all this weary delay is over at last. It has been a terrible trial.”
“Yes,” Fred said coolly, “it has been a nuisance.”
“I suppose we are to begin at once, Fred?”
“Yes,” Fred Bingham answered. “On Monday. I have got several offers for the cuttings.”
“But, Fred, it was arranged between your father and myself that I was to have all the earthwork.”
“Ah,” Fred said, “very likely. But the old man has nothing to do with it now, and I am not bound by any foolish arrangements he may have made.”
Frank grew very white, but he controlled himself. “And do you mean to say, Fred, putting aside the fact of our being cousins, that after my coming down here at your father’s wish, after being here all these months, receiving not a penny,—while your clerks and men down here have been paid just as usual—until every penny I have in the world is gone—do you mean to say you are going to throw me over now?”
“I am not going to throw you over, as you call it,” Fred said; “if you are ready to do the work on the same terms as other people, you can have it. These are the offers I have had.” And he pushed some letters across to Frank. They were illiterate, badly spelt epistles, evidently from working men.
“The work cannot possibly be done on the terms, Fred,” Frank said when he had glanced through them. “The ground is tough blue clay with stones, just the same that they have got on the other line. In many cases you must use powder to it. These men are mere wandering navvies. They will make money as long as they are merely at work on the easy surface stuff, and then when they find it doesn’t pay will go off without paying their men. I will take the work on the terms which any responsible person is willing to tender for it at.”
“Yes,” Fred Bingham said, “but the responsible person would find money, and not call upon me the first Saturday for the men’s pay. You tell me yourself you have no money.”