"You?" said Blake incredulously.
"Yes, me. When it comes to applying what's in the books, I'm not so worse. You know that, Tommy. But this proposition—Only available dam site is across a stretch of bottomless bog, yet it's got to hold a sixty-five foot head of water."
"Je-ru-salem!" whistled Blake. "Say, you've sure got to give me a shy at that, Grif. It can't be worked out—that's a cinch. Just the same, I'd like to fool with the proposition."
Griffith squinted at the younger engineer through his pipe smoke, and grunted: "Guess I'll have to let you try, if you're set on it." He nodded to Lord James. "You know how much use it is bucking against Tommy. The boys used to call him a mule. They were half wrong. That half is bulldog."
"Aw, come off!" put in Blake. "You know it's just because I hate to quit."
"That's straight. You're no quitter. Shouldn't wonder if you held on to this dam problem till you swallowed it."
"Stow the kidding," said Blake, embarrassed.
"I'm giving it to you straight. This dam has made a lot of good ones quit. I'm about ready to quit, myself. But I'll be—switched if I don't think you'll make a go of it, Tommy."
"In your eye!"
"No." Griffith took out his pipe and fixed an earnest gaze on Blake. "I'm not one to slop over. You know that. I can put it all over you in mathematics—in everything that's in the books. So can a hundred or more men in this country. Just the same, there's something—you've got something in you that ain't in the books."