Stephen, for he had a streak of vanity in his nature, lighted a cigar, and pretended to be very busy over some papers. After a moment he looked up, to find McKay staring in such open-mouthed astonishment that it seemed as if his teeth were in danger of falling back down his throat.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” he finally ejaculated. “What are you doing here?”
“I am the manager,” said Stephen in a dignified manner. Then he could keep a sober face no longer, and burst into a laugh, in which McKay, though in a dazed and uncertain manner, joined.
Stephen jumped up from his chair and shook hands with his old boss. McKay continued to swing his arm up and down, as though this grip were his one hold upon the world of realities.
“You! How on earth did it happen? You must have been a heap wiser than I thought!” exclaimed McKay.
The only danger of being thought wise is that one is tempted to prove it; but Stephen safely avoided this danger.
“Anyhow, Mac,” he answered, “here I am and here I hope I’ll remain, and there is a lot of work for you to do here. Things have been allowed to deteriorate to such an extent that it takes more time to rebuild than it must have taken to construct the whole plant. Fortunately we have the original plans designed by the people who had opened the mine, and though they are no key to what has been done, they give a pretty good idea of what was meant to be done.” As he spoke he pulled a roll of blue prints out from the desk drawer, and drawing up a chair beside him for McKay, he started to outline the work.
As he watched the unerring way in which McKay’s clumsily shaped finger followed the designs, stopping at each questionable point and rubbing back and forth over it with the determined questioning of a hand competent to remedy defects, Loring thanked heaven for the fact that the Quentin Company, their rush of early work over, had parted with such a man. The very twitching of the corners of McKay’s mustache, as he pored over the papers, showed a personality teeming with success and energy. After an hour of hard work Stephen pushed back his chair from the desk and rolled up the prints.
“I’m afraid, Mac,” he said, “that you are going to be very busy here. You see I know how good a man you are. But I also realize that after your journey you must eat, and that you will want to see your quarters.”