“I don’t think so at all, my dear fellow, I know it. I’m sure of it. Look here,” and he pulled out a design from a pigeon-hole in his desk; “this is in confidence, you understand. I oughtn’t to show it to you; but I can trust your honor. Here’s Walker’s idea. It isn’t an idea at all, in fact, it’s just the ordinary old stone viaduct, with the ordinary dangers, and the ordinary iron girders—nothing in any way new or original. It’s respectable mediocrity. On an affair like that, and with this awkward curve, too, just behind taking-off point, the liability to accident is considerably greater than in a construction like Le Neve’s, where nothing’s left to chance, and where every source of evil, such as land-springs, or freshets, or weakening, or concussion, is considered beforehand and successfully provided against. If a company only thought of the lives and limbs of its passengers—which it never does, of course—and had a head on its shoulders, which it seldom possesses, Le Neve’s is undoubtedly the design it would adopt in the interests of security.”
Tyrrel drew a long breath. “And you know all this,” he said, “and yet you won’t say a word for Le Neve to the directors. A recommendation from YOU, you see—”
Sir Edward shrugged his shoulders. “Impossible!” he answered, at once. “It would be a great breach of confidence. Remember, Walker showed me his design as a friend, and after having looked at it I couldn’t go right off and say to Stillingfleet, ‘I’ve seen Walker’s plans, and also another fellow’s, and I advise you, for my part, not to take my friend’s.’ It wouldn’t be gentlemanly.”
Tyrrel paused and reflected. He saw the dilemma. And yet, what was the breach of confidence or of etiquette to the deadly peril to life and limb involved in choosing the worst design instead of the better one? It was a hard nut to crack. He could see no way out of it.
“Besides,” Sir Edward went on, musingly, “even if I told them they wouldn’t believe me. Whatever Walker sends in they’re sure to accept it. They’ve more confidence, I feel sure, in Walker than in anybody.”
A light broke in on Walter Tyrrel’s mind.
“Then the only way,” he said, looking up, “would be ... to work upon Walker; induce him NOT to send in, if that can be managed.”
“But it can’t be,” Sir Edward answered, with brisk promptitude. “Walker’s a money-grubbing chap. If he sees a chance of making a few thousands more anywhere, depend upon it he’ll make ‘em. He’s a martyr to money, he is. He toils and slaves for L. s. d. {money} all his life. He has no other interests.”
“What can he want with it?” Tyrrel exclaimed. “He’s a bachelor, isn’t he, without wife or child? What can a man like that want to pile up filthy lucre for?”
“Can’t say, I’m sure,” Sir Edward answered, good humoredly. “I have my quiver full of them myself, and every guinea I get I find three of my children are quarreling among themselves for ten and sixpence apiece of it. But what Walker can want with money heaven only knows. If I were a bachelor, now, and had an estate of my own in Cornwall, say, or Devonshire, I’m sure I don’t know what I’d do with my income.”