Eight months' work for a good man, but I must have it
done in four. Take along assistants and equipment--all you need--and a
thousand pounds premium to the man who puts it through so that we get
the job."
"Peer--were you sent?" Merle half rose from her seat in her excitement.
"I--and one other."
"Who was that?"
"His name was Ferdinand Holm."
Merle smiled her one-sided smile, and looked at him through her
long lashes. She knew it had been the dream of his life to beat that
half-brother of his in fair fight. And now!
"And what came of it?" she asked, with a seeming careless glance at the
lamp.
Peer flung away his cigarette. "First an expedition up the Nile, then
a caravan journey, camels and mules and assistants and provisions and
instruments and tents and quinine--heaps of quinine. Have you any
idea, I wonder, what a job like that means? The line was to run through
forests and tunnels, over swamps and torrents and chasms, and everything
had to be planned and estimated at top speed--material, labour, time,
cost and all. It was all very well to provide for the proper spans and
girders for a viaduct, and estimate for thoroughly sound work in casting
and erecting--but even then it would be no good if the Germans could
come along and say their bridge looked handsomer than ours. It was a
job that would take a good man eight months, and I had to get it done
in four. There are just twelve hours in a day, it's true--but then
there are twelve more hours in the night.
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