“Breakwaters?” ejaculated Coffee. His surprise was sincere.
“Yes, breakwaters,” retorted Neale. “I drew plans for breakwaters to be built up-stream so that in high water the rapid current would be directed equally between the piers, and not against them.”
“Oh yes! Why—we must have got—it mixed,” replied Coffee. “Thought they were to be built last. Wasn’t that it, Blake?”
“Sure,” replied his colleague, but his tone lacked something.
“Ah—I see,” said Neale, slowly.
Then the big Irishman got up to extend a huge hand. “I’m Colohan,” he boomed.
Neale liked the bronzed, rough face, good-natured and intelligent. And he was aware of a shrewd pair of gray eyes taking his measure. Why these men seemed to want to look through Neale might have been natural enough, but somehow it struck him strangely. He had come there to help them, not to discharge them. Colohan, however, did not rouse Neale’s antagonism as the others had done.
“Colohan, are you sick of this job?” queried Neale, after greeting the boss.
“Yes—an’ no,” replied Colohan.
“You want to quit, then?” went on Neale, bluntly. The Irishman evidently took this curt query as a foreword of the coming dismissal. He looked shamed, crestfallen, at a loss to reply.