"They saw it was just a waste of time and money," the man replied frankly.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Why, the job was slated for Graves—that was all. It was clear enough to us. There's mighty little that goes out of that office except to Graves."
"Is that so? I asked Mr. Hart particularly to have your company bid on the contracts."
Then the man became confidential, and explained how a certain ambiguity in the wording of the specifications made it risky for a contractor to bid unless he knew just how the architect would treat him; for the contractor might easily "get stuck" for much more than the possible profits, though bidding in perfect good faith. The man was willing enough to talk, once started on the subject, and in the course of half an hour he explained to the layman some of the chicanery of the building business.
"So you see, Mr. Pemberton, the contractor, to protect himself when he doesn't know his man, bids pretty high, and then the favored contractor can safely go a good bit lower. He has an understanding with the architect, maybe, and it all depends on how the specifications are going to be interpreted."
And he told other things,—how some of the firms who had bid had since got parts of the general contract from the Graves Company, but with an altered set of specifications.
"It's queer," he ended finally. "We can't see how they'll make a cent on the contract unless Graves is goin' to rot it clear through."
He explained what he meant by "rotting" it,—the use of cheap grades of materials and inferior labor, from the foundation stones to the cornice. In other words, the building would be a "job."
"For those specifications called for a first-class building, and no mistake,—awful heavy steel work, and cabinet finish, and all that. If it's built according to specification, you're going to have a first-class school all right."