"'No; I have not.'
"'Well, sir, I make 500 yards more than you; and if I don't get it it will be very bad for me, for I shall not be able to pay my men.' That did not seem to flurry him. He opened the safe, and read from the paper I had signed some months ago. Blessed if it ever occurred to me to think that I had signed for the total quantities, but I had, for I was then so taken up with the 30 yards. Like you, I am old enough to know that no contract is indisputable, and that many things in law have to be tried before they are law when a question arises, and that there is not much finality about the show; but here I was caught, and had made my own net, and no mistake; so, after putting in all I knew and saying to him, 'I did not take that bit of paper to mean the same as he did,' I considered it best to shake down easy as I saw I was grassed, so I took his measurement; but I wished blue ruin to the heaps, and may where they were tipped be well worried by worms and vermin. Look out! I shall break something."
"Don't slap the table with your clenched fist like that, or we shall have to pay for damages, and have nothing left for drinks."
"Right you are; but it does make me wild to think of it."
"You were had at your own game there!"
"Yes; but after all said and done, except the ground is level throughout, I heard two engineers say earthwork measurements are generally a matter of fair averaging; and if tables are used, some like this table and others that, so all are happy; but they agreed cross-sections are the best, and unless a plaster cast is made of the surface of some ground, no one could say what the measurement really was to a few yards, and that it does not much matter as the price per cubic yard is so little compared with most prices of work, such as masonry, brickwork, concrete, &c."
"You have finished, I fancy?"
"Yes."
"Now I'll tell you how I once got a bit 'extra' from measurements in rather an odd way. The work was done without a contractor, it was principally let in pieces to sub-contractors, and the rest day-work; but I heard they did not gain much, if anything, by it. Came to nearly the same thing, and all the bother and risk themselves, and about the same good work.
"Well, the funny way I made some extra profit, of course, as usual, very much against my will, was this. I happened to be in the engineer's office, and heard the resident say to his assistant, 'Mr. ——, please make a list of timber required for the quay sheds, and take out the quantities.' Now it is only fair to say the assistant knew his book and was up to snuff, but we are all caught tripping sometimes, and whether it was his anxiety to ascertain the exact quantities, I don't know, but he got mixed, and blessed if the timber was not ordered net lengths, and nothing allowed for mortises and making joints. Just as we were going to start on the sheds they took us away, and before the foundations were excavated for the walls. It was fortunate they did, as it happened, for it afterwards occurred to the assistant that he had forgotten to allow for mortises and joints. So the sheds had to be made about a foot less width than they should have been, and we got paid for the foot or so at each end that was left out; and the inspector got the tip, I suppose, for nothing was said, and it was not noticed, for they were wide store sheds, with a line of rails through the centre, and it really did not matter at all. So you see I was forced to take a bit 'extra,' but that is the only time in the whole of my life. Of course it worried me much."