‘Certainly not, sir,’ said John: ‘you have always been very kind and given me every opportunity; but I hope on my part I have not done anything to make you suppose I am ungrateful, or have not appreciated my advantages.’
‘We have nothing to complain of so far as the works are concerned. I think, sir, I may say that?’
‘It is a point on which I should not like to commit myself,’ said the senior partner. ‘These works at Hampstead, so far as I hear——’
‘They went wrong when he was away. He can’t be blamed for that: he came back before his time and went over at once, and made every thing shipshape again. He can’t be blamed for that. Whatever went wrong was after his leave began.’
‘An engineer,’ said the elder gentleman, in his rigid way, ‘who means to do justice to his profession, doesn’t want leave. The works are his first interest—he has no occasion to go away to amuse himself.’
‘Oh, come, father! you’re making that a fault which is no fault—and we have a ground of offence which is real enough. Sandford, you came here the other day and told me of a scheme you had for draining the Thames valley. You may say I was disposed to pooh-pooh it a bit; but I didn’t say more than one does naturally with a young fellow’s first ideas, which are always so magnificent. Do you think there was a reason in anything I said for transferring the papers as you’ve done to another firm?’
‘I transfer them to another firm?’ cried John, ‘you must be dreaming. I have them here.’
‘You have them there? Then what do Spender and Diggs mean by spreading it abroad that they have had such a scheme sent to them by one of the pupils in our office, but which we had not enterprise to take up?’
‘Spender and Diggs!’ John was so well acquainted with the name of the rival firm that it raised no sense of humour in his mind: but something quite different, that sense of rivalry which is so strong between the pupils and partisans of different schools. He made a little pause, staring at his younger employer. And then he said, ‘I don’t know the least in the world what you mean.’
‘There is no ambiguity at all about my meaning. I say that Spender and Diggs are putting it about everywhere that a great scheme, worked out by one of our pupils, for the draining of the Thames valley, has been offered to them.’