"Wonderfully brainy chap, Garstin. He has helped me no end with Section D—you know, where we have had all the trouble. With luck we shall have it finished in a week or two. At the same time"—with conviction—"he will never make a practical engineer. Wouldn't be any good in an emergency. No nerve—no nerve at all. Seems to go to bits directly he gets outside the office. Can't even look down into the section without holding on to something. If a crane starts anywhere near, it makes him jump, and as to being any good with the gang, why, he daren't speak to one of them. Only this afternoon, when O'Donnell came and blustered——"
"O'Donnell?" said his wife.
"Yes—a man I sacked for being drunk and fighting. He came to the office this afternoon and asked to be taken on again. He said he could get no other job, and his wife and children were starving. I told him that the regulations would not admit of his re-employment; besides, I had reported him as dismissed and filled up the vacancy. Then he started cursing and threatening that he would do for the wharf and for me too, unless I relented. Of course I didn't relent. I turned him out—he was half-drunk. And there—what do you think?—there was Garstin with his hands covering his face, shivering and shaking as if he had seen a ghost.
"'I am sure that fellow means mischief, Mr. Trevannion,' he muttered. 'I'm sure he does—I read it in his eyes. Hadn't you better take him back—just for the sake of his wife?'
"Of course I couldn't—wouldn't. But Garstin's a brainy beggar—oh, wonderfully brainy."
There came a certain Friday evening when the two men sat late in their office, compiling the weekly report. Trevannion was in high good-humour; for had not their joint efforts, as he liked to call Garstin's useful suggestions, proved successful in ousting the river finally from Section D? and was not that troublesome part of the wharf ready for good concrete as soon as it could be made? He had to record this gratifying intelligence for the Committee's benefit, and he did it with a relish.
"Nothing to fear now for the old section," he remarked cheerfully.
"Nothing but the unexpected collapse of a pile," said Garstin.