Jim began to pace the floor. "Did you ever talk this over with Uncle Denny, Penelope?"
"No!" she gave a scornful sniff. "If ever I had dared to criticize you, he'd have turned me out of the house. No one can live in New York and not think a great deal about immigration problems. And—I have been with you much in the past eight years, Jimmy. I can't tell you how much I have thought about you and your work. And then, just before old Iron Skull was killed, he turned you over to me."
Jim paused before her. "He was worried about you, too," she went on. "He said you were not getting the big grasp on things that you ought and that I must help you."
"I wonder if that was what he was trying to tell me when he was killed," said Jim. "The dear old man! Go on, Pen."
"I've just this much more to say, Jim, and that is that if the Reclamation Service idea fails, it's more the fault of you engineers than of anyone else. The sort of thing you engineers do on the dam is typical of the Anglo-American in the whole country. You are quitters!"
"Pen, don't you say that again!" exclaimed Jim, sharply. "I'm doing all I can!"