"We have been ready for you since we first rose," Tom answered.
"Is your answer ready?" Don Luis demanded, eyeing them searchingly.
"Don Luis," Tom replied, instantly, "the report that you wanted us to sign for you would hardly answer the purpose with shrewd American investors. That report goes back too far; it covers too many points that you might be supposed to know were true, but which engineers who had been here but a few weeks could hardly be expected to know at first hand. Do you see the point that I am raising?"
Don Luis deliberated for a few moments.
"I think I do see the point, Senor Reade. You mean that the report will not do."
"So," Tom continued, "Hazelton and I don't feel that we ought to sign that report. However, we will get up and sign for you a report that will answer in every way, and this new report will be satisfactory. If you will let your driver take Nicolas up to the house, Nicolas can bring the typewriting machine from your office, and some stationery with it. We can set the machine up on the camp table, and within the next two hours we can agree upon a satisfactory report, which I will write out on the machine."
"And you will sign the new report—when?"
"Just as soon as we have it written out in form that will suit you."
"You will want the big ledger for facts?" asked Montez.
"No," smiled Tom; "because the ledger doesn't contain facts anyway. We can invent just as good statements without any reference to the ledger."