MASONRY BRIDGES.
"Now I'll tell you how we got on with some masonry bridges. Being more of a scholar than most of them—thanks to the parish school—and being able to read, write, and sum a bit, I knew a trifle extra to the other chaps, and was made a ganger when very young. Somehow or other, I drifted into being crafty, and just then made friends with a man that was up to every game, and remembered old George Stephenson. He could tell and teach you something, and did me; but even I have known the time when we hardly ever had a drawing to work to, except the section, and have walked many miles behind an engineer, and heard him say to my partner—who was a mason, and a real good one—'Joe, put a bridge there, the same span and width between the inside of the parapets as the others.' 'All right, sir!'
"You know that was the time of the rush for railways, and few understood the business. Too many do now, I think, and the old country is too full of mouths generally. Then there was scarcely time to think, much more for many drawings; they were made after.
"We used to take a bridge at a time, at so much the cubic yard, and we did put it in thick, abutments, counterforts, wingwalls, and parapets, and all the work was as straight as could be made; and I have known my partner, Joe, nearly drawn into tears when he was forced by circumstances over which he had no control to own an arch to a bridge was not exactly a straight line. Spirals and winders made him that waspish as I took good care to make myself particularly wanted somewhere else than at the bridge at which he was busy when he had to do them.
"Some of the bridges we built have enough masonry in them to nearly build a church or a small breakwater, and lucky they have, as it gave one the chance of a bit of profit; and the depth of the foundations was hardly so deep as shown in the drawings made after we had built a bridge. Somehow or other our imagination used to scare away reality, and we generally were paid for a foot or more extra depth all round.
"Joe said that was the way he got his professional fees for building a bridge without a drawing, and the only way he could and, moreover, did; but he always put the masonry in solid, that is to say, when he considered it should be, although hardly, perhaps, to the specification throughout, but the face looked lovely; and if the inside work was rather rough and tumble and really "random," he knew what a good bond was, and would have it, and was really clever at selecting the right rock in the cuttings for masonry; but there, no one can expect the filling-in work to be done the same way as the facework.
"Of course, it was not exactly honest to be paid for more work than we had done; but it is only fair to say we were generous with our extra profits, and always treated the inspector and our men right. We were bound to educate them and enlighten their minds. I own it was not right, and, after all, it would want an 'old parliamentary hand' to tell the difference in dishonesty between over-measurement founded on lies and stealing. However, one is supposed to be the result of cleverness, the other, crime.
"I forgot to tell you we took a cue from a director who occasionally walked over the line, and who always showed about half-an-inch of his cheque-book sticking up out of his pocket. We were told he wore his cheque-book like the mashers do their pocket-handkerchiefs; but that he was not worth much, and was on the war path for 'plunder,' and so were we, and took his tip. I said to myself, as he has brought a new fashion into play in these parts, let us take the hint.
"'So we will,' said my partner.
"'How long is the specification for masonry?