"And you, Tobin?"
"I held out a year," said the little consumptive, "but couldn't afford to lose my job."
All the others present pleaded guilty.
"Don't you fellows get anything for it but a little off-season work?" asked Gard.
"Not a thing," acknowledged Hansen with a huge oath. "We certainly sell out cheap and the company makes barrels of money out of the bargain. But the old man has never given us a look in on any of it."
The dictagraph stenographer at the next table had caught every word. He was in a position to substantiate the testimony of Gard who should be able to make these samplers tell their stories in court. Soon the two faded away without being missed, but they took with them a complete case against the Government samplers of this port and against the Continental Refining Company which had been profiting through their shortcomings.
It was a month later and Billy Gard had completed his work. He had gone to Henry Gottrell "cold turkey," and with authority from the department. He had shown that rotund and genial captain of industry just the case the Government had against him. With him he had gone over the record of the business of the refiners since that period, eight years previous, when the wet sample scheme had been inaugurated. He had worked out an estimate of the probable duty that the Government had lost during that time. The actual loss was not, of course, as great as the theoretical, for many of the samples were of necessity honest. Yet it must have run as high as $600,000 as a shortage on the part of Gottrell and his associates.
Gard indicated the possibility of the success of a criminal prosecution, the probability of recovering that large sum of money through the courts. He confessed to the humiliation of the Government that so many of its employees had been false to their trust. He even granted that the Government might, under the circumstances, feel itself somewhat to blame for the conditions that had existed. It is not recorded whether the vision of a girl with frizzly, corn-colored hair came into the mind of the special agent and had to do with his recommendations that the case be settled out of court. But certain it is that the Government authorized him to propose that, if the company should pay the Government $600,000, an amount it would be just able to raise and escape bankruptcy, the case would be dismissed, the samplers discharged, and a new régime inaugurated in which the Government would take pains to protect itself.
Upon this basis the case was settled. Billy Gard had earned his salary.