‘I shall always be willing to hear and consider your opinion, Jack,’ said his master, with that philosophic urbanity which distinguished him; ‘you are a shrewd, sensible fellow, and, I know, faithful to my interest. But you must see that the cost of employing one man for fifty days, or fifty men for one day, is precisely similar. Excepting always that you save forty-nine days in time by the latter arrangement.’
‘Well, that’s right enough, sir; but, somehow, none of the gentlemen I know as has made money out of their stations never liked to see a lot of men being fed and paid and kept about the station, except for shearing or such like.’
‘But don’t you think the canal will be a splendid thing for the run, if we can get the river water to Outer Lake?’
‘Well, sir, if it does, all very well, but somehow I don’t seem to be quite sure that it will; and if cattle keeps low, where’s the money to come from?’
‘Whether cattle sell cheaply or otherwise, if we can get five thousand pounds’ worth of water for five hundred, it pays well to lay out the money.’
‘Ah well, sir, I can’t say for that. But I think you might give it a thought whether these chaps are likely to do much of a day’s work at this cutting, or whatever you call it. As long as they have their grub and their wages they’ll hang it out, one again the other—regular Government stroke, as we say in this country.’
‘But how can I arrange it otherwise?’ inquired Ernest anxiously.
‘Give it ’em by piecework,’ replied Mr. Windsor confidently. ‘You watch, now, how much half a dozen of the best of ’em does in a day. Measure it when you’re by yourself; then run it off what it comes to at the wages and rations you pay. After that you can let it to ’em at so much a foot, or so much a rod, for them to “find themselves” out of the contract price.’
This very shrewd practical suggestion was, after consultation with Mr. Banks, finally adopted. The small army of excavators was informed that henceforth the pay would be at the rate of so much per cubic foot; that their rations, of whatever quantity, would be debited to them, as they would have to ‘find themselves.’ And that no departure from this scale of payment and charges would be permitted. After some grumbling, a little scheming, and a few departures, matters went on quietly. Mr. Neuchamp surveyed with satisfaction, week by week, the smooth-edged channel crossing the endless plain, destined, if all went well, to turn back-country into frontage, and so revolutionise custom and compel fortune.
After this great achievement was fairly on the road to completion, Mr. Neuchamp turned his mind to the dignified and fascinating science of horse-breeding. He had, in the comparative solitude of Rainbar, been revolving this vitally important question, dear to every descendant of Britons in every quarter of the globe. He had been pained and grieved, of late, to observe that so few among the countless droves of equine forms with which the land was overrun were worthy the name of horses. They bore no approximation to the gallant, delicate-limbed desert steed of Arabia—as little to the stately, swift, and powerful animal that the science of English breeders has evoked from the questionable coursers of the past.