“He repeated it all to me ten minutes afterward,” declared the office manager unblushingly. “I was enthusiastic; I thought there was something in it. Then, later, when Mr. Hope reported that you were not interested, Rand and I thought we’d work it out together. That’s what we’ve done, and now he’s ready to ask your opinion of it again. That’s all we know about it.”
Mr. Cooper waved his hand to silence Jimmy, and went on swiftly:
“What Mr. Hope told you about it we don’t know. Evidently he didn’t describe it very accurately, but perhaps that was because he thought it unimportant, anyway. But Mr. Hope isn’t here now to explain his actions if you think they need explanation. And, chief, I happen to know that he’s coming in to consult you this afternoon on this very matter. That’s a fact, chief, he is. You wait and hear what he has to say, then you’ll understand it all. And Rand and I will both be here; just send for us if you want us.”
The president stared searchingly at his two employees an instant. Then abruptly he resumed his former manner of attentive listening.
“Go on with your scheme, Mr. Rand; you interest me.”
Jimmy suppressed with an effort the anger that this new proof of Mr. Hope’s duplicity had aroused in him, and resumed: “You understand, Mr. Wentworth,” he interrupted himself when he had been talking perhaps five minutes, “I’m not going to try and talk to you in technical language. I’ve only studied these engineering problems a little with George. I think I can make the thing clear in a general way, but I can’t talk technically.”
“I couldn’t understand you very well if you did,” the president observed. “That’s always been up to my technical men.”
“As I said, sir,” Jimmy went on, “the—”
“The first problem is how you propose to burn the coal,” Mr. Wentworth interrupted. “Tell me about that first.”
Jimmy explained how they would bore down to the coal measures, just as borings are made in prospecting. “This would be a small vertical shaft,” he added.