"No doubt it caused another wrinkle to set on your forehead."
"Very likely; but an old partner of mine told me he once was paid for the corners of a lot of level-crossing lodges twice over by taking the outside wall measurements all round instead of two outside and two inside, but only once, when things had to be done at a great rush; it was a case of hurry up all round, for all the final measurements of the whole line had to be done in a fortnight."
CHAPTER XV.
MEN AND WAGES. 'SUB' FROM THE WOOD. A SUB-CONTRACTOR'S SCOUT AND FREE TRAVELLER.
"It is nearly midnight. I am game for another hour, are you?"
"Yes. I like talking on the quiet, it draws you together, you know; you feel for a time as if we all belonged to one family, although we do not, and don't want; that's a fact."
"Precisely, old pal. Let us grip and sip."
"Did any of your men ever play rough on you?"
"Not often; but I remember one. He was a good working hand, and I did not mean to lose him. Ted Skip was his name. This is how it occurred. One Saturday night I was in the village, and saw at the corner of a lane a man standing up in a cart spouting away fit to give him heart disease, or break a blood-vessel, and getting hot so quick, that I am sure he was going to beat record time. I believe he was fed on dictionaries and stewed Socialist pamphlets that did not agree with him. He was pouring it out. He said in effect that pretty nearly everybody was a thief except himself and his comrades, and that nearly all things were poison as they were, and unless we all did as he said we were fools and felons, and worse. Then he went on to say, beer was poison, tobacco was poison, and the way things were now, and all went on, was worse than poison. Then he talked about us, called us railway slave drivers and slaves, and I am sure there was no one or nothing that existed that was not poison to him except himself and what he possessed, and the fools that paid him. I got wild after a bit, hearing him lying away as fast as he could speak, and I shouted, 'You are all poison, you old bit of arsenic, for what is not ass about you is from old Nick.' He was then shouting out 'Your constitution is wrong. All the bills are of no use.' That was too much for me, so I pushed my way in and showed him my fist, and said, 'I'll soon show you whether all the Bills are of no use and whether my constitution is wrong. My name is Bill Dark, and there are numbers of people here that know I have never been sick or sorry since I was born, and I have taken beer and smoked tobacco from the time I was fifteen. In moderation, I believe in this country it does good to most of us, and pretty well all except those that are built up peculiar, and if you want to see if I'm of no use, come on; only get a sack first, so that the pieces of you that remain, and are large enough to be found, can be taken away and burnt to-night instead of later on. You understand what I mean.'