"We are. Finish up, and we will have another. I remember Lord Palmerston said, dirt was matter out of place, or something like that. Now I think piles are often good timber out of place, so I followed that lesson and said to myself 'What a lot of good timber is going to be buried; and really it is breaking and loosening the ground too much to please me, and that's a mistake, besides placing extra weight on it'; so after dwelling on the subject as much as suited me, I decided it was waste, and that it was poison to me. I had trouble on my mind about it and it made me feel thirsty and does now. Pour another out."
"There you are."
"I'm better now. Well, I wrestled over the waste question some time, and finally made up my mind not to be a party to it, it being against my principles, and, like us all, no man shall make me swerve from them, especially when they agree with my pocket."
"Certainly; shake hands. That is good!"
"Well, there was only one way to do it, so in order that every one might have their way to a certain extent I decided to drive first one pile to the depth as ordered and one to the depth that suited me, and therefore both parties were satisfied and believed they had got what they wanted; for while I left the other man, that is the engineer—excuse the disrespect—to his happy thoughts, I descended to simple practice in a way very comforting to me. Knowing it is not every pile which is driven that drives whole, or is according to drawing, many often being twisted and knocked to shreds—although I have seen them driven through a layer of old brickwork, and whole, too—and that there is a lot of uncertainty about them in some ground, I dwelt on the matter, and came to the conclusion that according to the drawings every other pile would be driven about 3 to 4 feet too far down, and that all concerned hardly agreed upon the depth to which all of them should be driven, and that I was the chief one to be considered; so I cut off a few feet of the top of nearly every other pile, and varied the length according to whether the pile happened to drive hardly or went down gently."
"Precisely."
"Somehow or other the ground seemed really grateful to me, for more of the piles were cut off than I originally intended. They must have passed the tip—may be the worms did it; anyhow the ground, after a few had been driven, seemed to become harder, and we had more sawing to do than ever. I like sawing. You see your work, and all is above board and nothing hidden and no deception. Suits our principles. Now, you are like me, you don't wish to disturb other people's minds, we are built on the lines of love too much, and tenderness is better than anger any day."
"That's it. I consider you were doing a kindness all round, or as near to it as makes no difference!"
"Well, in order not to disturb any one, it took some thinking over as to the best time to ease off the tops. I mean cut the heads off and put the rings on again, and give the tops a properly seasoned appearance. I used to call it put their hair right. Now, you know docks are not like railway works, for the men are nearly all at one place; here we were in the middle of a large town, but you'll excuse my naming the place, I am too polite to do such a thing without permission. No one was about at dinner time, for all the chaps passed the gates. The place where my work was was shut in nicely, and as there was always a row going on from the traffic close by on road and river, and loading and unloading, it was a really nice little home in which to do a bit of engineering-up-to-date."
"I understand; a convenient spot for scientific experiments in saving labour and the waste of good material."