"I'd like to see him do it," replied Blake. He shook his head dubiously. "That's straight, Grif. I'd like to see him do it. I can't forget he's her father. If only I could be sure he hadn't a finger in the disappearance of those plans—Well, you can guess how I feel about it."
"You're dotty to think it a minute. He's a money-grubber—as sharp as some others. But he wouldn't do a thing like that. Don't you believe it!"
"Wish I'd never thought of it—he's her father. But it's been growing on me. I handed them in to his secretary, that young dude, Ashton."
"Ashton? There you've hit on a probability," argued Griffith. "Of all the heedless, inefficient papa's boys, he takes the cake! He wasn't H. V.'s secretary except in name. Wine, women, sports, and gambling—nothing else under his hat. Always had a mess on his desk. Ten to one, he got your package mixed in the litter, and shoved all together into his wastebasket."
"I'll put it up to him!" growled Blake.
"What's the use? He couldn't remember a matter of business over night, to save him."
"Lord! I sweat blood over those plans! It was hard enough to enter a competition put up by H. V., but it was the chance of a lifetime for me. Why, if only I'd known in time that they were lost, I'd have put in my scratch drawings and won on them. I tell you, Grif, that truss was something new."
"Oh, no, there's no inventiveness, no brains in your head, oh, no!" rallied Griffith. "Wait till you make good on this Zariba Dam."
"You just bet I'll make a stagger at it!" cried Blake. His eyes shone bright with the joy of work,—and as suddenly clouded with renewed moroseness.
"I'll be working for you, though," he qualified. "I don't take any jobs from H. V. Leslie—not until that matter of the bridge plans is cleared up."