“But, Colonel, you don’t want to tie up the whole work?” protested the leader.
“I am not proposing to tie up the work—you are doing that,” was the reply.
“But, Colonel, why can’t you pardon the man?”
“I will take no action in response to a mob. As for your threat to leave the service, I wish to say that every man of you who is not at his post to-morrow morning will be given his transportation to the United States, and there will be no string to it. He will go out on the first steamer and he will never come back.”
There was only one man who failed to report the following day, and he sent a doctor’s certificate stating that he was too ill to be out of bed.
Human engineering was especially called into play when the Man of Panama faced committees of inquiry and investigation from Congress. A pompous politician once demanded in a challenging tone and with a sharp eye on the colonel, “How much cracked stone do you allow for a cubic yard of concrete?”
“One cubic yard,” was the reply.
“You evidently do not understand my question,” rejoined the investigator in the manner of one who is bent on convicting another through his own words. “How much cracked stone do you allow for a cubic yard of concrete?”
“One cubic yard.”
“But you don’t allow for the sand and concrete.” The implied accusation was spoken with grave emphasis.