JOHN NEWMAN, Assoc. M. Inst. C.E., (continued 3)

"I beg your pardon, I was forgetting myself."

"All right. Now I'll go on again. Well, I thought the dog had got jammed in, and knew what tight lacing was, and so he did. At last we thought we heard him, and he came out looking more like a turnspit than a well-bred fox terrier.

"Some blood was on him. He had had a squeeze and no mistake, and was about done, but no bones were broken.

"I said slow and solemn like, 'Sir, he has tackled them.'

"'What do you think it was?'

"I said, 'You mean they, sir. He has had more than one against him.'

"I then took up Dasher and carried him to a tub of water and washed him. I did feel very sorry for the dog. I said, 'He has had a regular battle of Waterloo, but it is his high-breeding and proper training that has pulled him through the fight He has finished the lot, sir, you bet.'

"The resident engineer looked pleased, and I am sure I was. Dasher soon recovered and we walked away. Don't forget, what the eye does not see the heart does not grieve for, that is to say, I escaped all right; and those pipes were considered to be 18 inches in diameter, and you know it is not right and proper nor becoming to differ with one's superiors too much, it almost amounts to foolishness I consider in such cases. I always keep my brain in curb till I get a lean measurement, and then I speak, but it don't do to differ with your governor too much. The wheedling lay is the best game to play, and I have an aversion to a quarrel with anyone when you can get more by oil and smiles.

"Take my advice, and before you try splayed nozzles, know whether your guv'nors or the engineers have dogs, and, if so, the size of their barrels and whether they have done growing and laying on bulk, because, to be safe, you must work the pipes to fit the bow-wows. Remember I had a near squeak, and so did the dog. I always keep in with them now, and Dasher gets a biscuit from me whenever I see him, but he nearly cost me all I had. It is indeed a real pleasure to have the opportunity of rewarding virtue in men or dogs."

"That's right. Fill them up."

"The thought of that day rather makes me nervous and dry."

"That pipe and dog business was not exactly a holiday, but I had a worse nerve-shaker than that, for it is a wonder you see me now when I come to think of it. But there, Providence shields us all, good and bad, just to give the bad ones a chance to alter, and to test whether the good ones are really good. Still, I never meant anything wrong, of course not‌—‌no one ever does. It is always the surrounding circumstances that make things bad; and so we all humbug ourselves into thinking we are very right and proper and good, and we have our private opinion about other people."

"Stop that. Speak for yourself, and never mind about other people."

"All right. Don't get testy."

"Well, they let me take a cutting in hard marl down at Throatisfield Junction. It wanted a lot of blasting, for it was deceptive material. The powder used to go very quick and not split or move the ground much either. I would fifty times rather had a real rock cutting than this hardened lime and clay soil that won't cleave, and when the blast is fixed it only about blows up the tamping and makes a noise for nothing, but blasting marl rock is often vexatious work. One day, by a mistake, the firm I had the powder from did not send the weekly quantity by road as they ought to have done. I always paid for it prompt. They knew me, as I was an old customer. It was nothing to do with the cash, but a mistake in their office, so the only thing to be done was to fetch it; and as seventy pounds' weight of powder is no joke, and I did not want to lose a relation just then, I got it myself by train, and it nearly cost me my life. I took a large box, just like a cheese box, planed inside and as smooth as glass. We used the large-grained glazed powder. I thought to myself, 'I'll take it in the front van, and ride with it, and then I know all will be safe.'

"Now, there never was much luggage by this local train, although a lot of passengers, and hardly ever above a case or two in the front van. I knew the guards, and all would have gone pretty, but the usual front one had got a day off to bury a relation, and that nearly buried me and a lot more. After the front guard knew from the other who I was, he let me ride in his van when I showed my ticket. We had about 30 miles to travel, and stopped at nearly every station, about six of them altogether. It was nearly a two hours' journey. I got a chap to pack the powder safely for me, and all I had to do was to keep it from flame and heat and being knocked about. Of course the guard did not know what was in my box, and did not seem to care‌—‌he had other things to attend to that were, or seemed to be, more important. I sat on the box, and began a yarn about railway travelling, and was making the necessary impression upon him, just to show I knew a few swells and things. There may have been a trifle more imagination than fact about my talk, but not too much, just enough to season it. We were getting on very pleasantly, and nothing ugly occurred till we got two stations from home, then there was a crowd on the platform. Been a football match. The result was that three swells got into the guard's van. The old guard always locked the door, this new one did not. No room in the first, or anywhere else. Now I should not have cared a rap, as these three swells were as sober as judges, but one turned to the guard and said, 'You will not object to our smoking, I suppose?' Asking a question that way always seems to me more than half a command. The guard took it that way, I think, for he said, 'No, gentlemen, as the carriages are full; but if you can keep it as quiet as you can at the stations I shall thank you kindly, as there is a superintendent here as has pickled pork and coffee for tea, that considers smoking worse than poison, and it is against the rules.'

"Well, you can imagine I was just about fit to sink, as I knew there was enough pent-up force in that box to elevate me higher than I wanted to go by that sort of machinery. Two of the swells were free and easy kind, the other rather a lady's man, sort of feminine man‌—‌the latter began the game, and said, 'Charlie, have you a Vesuvian?'

"I dared not say a word, but I thought, 'My noble swell, I have not, but I have a Vesuvius here‌—‌in fact, I'm sitting on it‌—‌and if you are not careful the real one will have to take a back seat, and ashes will be large goods to what we shall be like.' Well, they all started smoking, and threw the fusees out of the window. After all, I thought to myself, there's nothing much to fear now, although it would be considerably more pleasant if you were in some other train somewhere. When I got in I put my box just a little way from the side, so that it should not jar, and there they had me. Soon we got near to the last station we had to stop before mine, and these swells all took their cigars out of their mouths, and as there was no place upon which to put them except on my box, they put them there! Pass me the bottle. Oh dear, oh dear, the thought of it! and they said to me, so nicely, 'You won't mind, I know.' Before I could think almost there were three cigars alight and red, been well puffed, and within 2 inches of 70 lbs. of the best glazed blasting powder, and me sitting on it as a sort of stoker!

"I dared not say anything; but worse was to come, for they kept taking a whiff and putting the cigars down again!

"After the train started the van jerked a bit over the crossing or a badly-packed sleeper, and just as one of the swells was going to pick up his cigar, it slipped, fell upon the top of my box of powder and then upon the floor, and the sparks did fly!"

"No wonder you felt bad. I feel for you now, I do. It makes me dry."

"Stop! Worse is to come‌—‌worse. Pass the bottle. Wait a minute; I can say no more until I have loosened my collar."

"Well, true as I am here, if there was not a fizz, a few grains had got loose. My box had a hole in it; a knot in the wood had shaken out! I knew the fizz was not like that of sporting powder, but my powder‌—‌and to think there might have been a train self-laid right up to the bottom of the box! Providence again."

"Shake."

"I'm hearty to you. It must have been an angel that broke the train of powder, for on looking carefully about I saw a dozen or more grains. Luckily for me, the guard had his head out of the window all the time, as the whistle had been sounding. The swells only laughed at the fizzle. I did not; I knew what a fearfully narrow squeak I had had. I expect they thought it was a match end. However, I have had a life of narrow squeaks, and so I got over it pretty soon, and said, 'The next station is mine, gentlemen!' I moved my box a trifle, and noticed there was a bit of paper on one side sticking out. I saw one of the swells also noticed it, and seemed thoughtful. He soon made me understand that he knew the paper. It was specially prepared, and a peculiar colour. His father was the owner of the powder mills, and lived about five miles from my cutting. If I was not previously blown up, I knew it was in his power to have me fined fearfully heavy, if not imprisoned. He stared at me, and as we were going down a long 1 in 50 gradient and corkscrew line the guard looked out for squalls and two of the swells on the other side. He then whispered in my ear, 'Is your name Dark?'

"I could not speak, it took me back so; but I managed to nod. He said, 'Why did you not telegraph? I would have had it delivered specially'; and he pointed to my box. He gave me a half-dollar, and put out his cigar. I quickly and carefully filled up the hole and picked up the stray grains, and no one knew anything, except him and me. He then said, 'Take my advice, don't try that game again; for if you manage to struggle through such a journey without becoming a million or two atoms you will probably be hanged'; and he motioned with hand to his throat. 'This time I shall say nothing.'

"I thanked him. I never felt so small and weak in my life. Well, I arrived at my station, and got my box out and sat upon it for some time till the reaction on my nervous system had worked; but I would have given just then some one else's gold-mines for a strong lap-up of something neat. Mind you, about five minutes before we stopped the up mail passed us, and we were both going full forty miles an hour. Suppose the box had fizzled out just then, it would have wrecked both trains, killed a few hundreds, blown a big hole in the line, spoilt the dividends for some time, shocked the world, made widows and orphans of half the country round pretty nigh, have ruined a few speculators who were on the 'bull' lay in the main line shares, and have smashed into chips more than half the 'bucket-shop' outside benevolent (?) institutions for the distribution of wealth as were operating for a rise."

"It seems to me you lost a grand opportunity of being a big pot for once, and showing them who's which‌—‌but there! you always had a kind heart, and I remember you have often said a too sudden rise in the world never did any one much lasting good."

"You are right; but perhaps it is as well for me. I am so modest, and ambition knows me not."

Note.‌—‌On all public works it is advisable to know by what means any blasting agents are brought to the works. Daily use not infrequently causes the men to be very reckless, and stringent regulations in conformity with the various Acts and general experience should be made, and every care taken to have them faithfully observed.

CHAPTER XI.

CONCRETE. PUDDLE.

"Have you managed to squeeze any 'extra' profit on the quiet out of concrete?"

"Yes, twenty or thirty years ago, but there is not much to be got now. Since a few engineers took to writing upon the subject they have reminded or informed others pretty well what to look after, but there were not many thirty years back that knew how it ought to be made; and you see, although one receives the materials, the concrete has to be made with them, manufactured, as it were, on the work, and you can spoil the best Portland cement that is, was, or ever will be made in the proportioning, mixing, and blending it with bad sand and gravel, or dirty broken rock.

"They handed me the Portland cement, and all the specification said was, 'All concrete shall consist of 1 of Portland cement to 6 of clean gravel, and shall be mixed and deposited in a workmanlike manner [which we consider means as the workmen like] to the entire satisfaction of the Company's engineer.'

"This was drawn up by a civil and mechanical engineer, which is a big-drum kind of title, and I should think covered corkscrews and manufacturing machinery, and everything else under the sun that can be handled at any time, including a 6-inch drain, the Forth Bridge, and the Channel Tunnel thrown in. It's too much, it seems to me, for one man to completely understand; and I once heard a celebrated engineer say that, with a few brilliant exceptions, such a man knew thoroughly neither civil nor mechanical engineering‌—‌life was too short. I don't presume to say anything, but his specifications of our kind of work might have been more exact; still they were sources of joy and comfort to us.

"Machine mixing was hardly known at the time I am particularly referring to, and the Portland cement was of all qualities, good, bad, and indifferent, and some as I really can't say had any quality in it at all, and was utterly unlike what you get now. It was then sometimes bought on the same principle as going to the first shop handy, and saying, 'Small bag of cement. How much?' There was no name on the bag, for no one wished to own he had made the cement, and it was indeed of illegitimate origin, and had no parents.

"The cement came, and we did pretty well as we liked, for the inspector knew nothing about it; in fact, we were all in the same boat. But what a lucky thing it is that there is such a thing as a margin of safety!"

"You mean the difference between the strain a thing has to bear in ordinary use and what will break it?"

"Yes, that is it. One day an engineer said to me, 'There is a large factor of safety in this case, which is fortunate.' I thought he was talking about a flour factor near the works that also sold fire-escapes and fire-extinguishers, so I said, 'He weighs nearly eighteen stone, and I should call him big rather than large, for he is like the prices at which he sells flour, and charges a penny a quartern too much; but he is greatly respected in the neighbourhood by those who don't know what fair prices are, for he is so oily and civil, as just suits a lot.' Between you and me, he swindled them, and beat us for 'extra' profit.

"The engineer looked as if he could not at first make out what I was talking about, and, as it turned out, I did not know what he was. He seemed to enjoy himself, and let me finish my sermon. He then explained to me what we call 'margins' of safety, and what they call 'factors' of safety are the same goods."

"You have learnt something now."

"I have, another name; no doubt their word is the right one, but they ought to consider the likes of us are not poets, or fed on stewed grammar, and should remember we were boss-gangers once, and have blossomed into sub-contractors.

"Let that pass. You should have seen the cement. It was lucky we never had to sift it as we do now, or we should never have got any through a forty-to-the-inch mesh. It was just like fine sand, and nearly the colour of it, too, instead of grey. I have had a fair experience with Portland cement now, for we had testing-rooms, machines and troughs, fresh and sea water, slabs, and a host of other detective apparatus at the last dock works I was on. However, the cement we had and I was just referring to, was pretty nearly all residue, and of course it did not stick the gravel together except in streaks that had good luck rather than anything else. And the gravel! Well, it is an elastic truth to call it gravel, for it was dirty; and I conscientiously feel I am close to thinking I am not speaking in accordance with the principles of strict veracity if I call it gravel.

"And the mixing! Well, there was not much of it, just a turning over or two, and we deluged the stuff with water so as to make it easy to handle, and we hurled it into the foundations as we pleased and at all sorts of heights, just as might happen to be convenient. I did not trouble myself about it then, but I do now, for I had a month or two in and about the testing places when there was no other job for me that suited, and I firmly believe almost all the failures of Portland cement concrete occur because the men that used it do not understand it, or the specification is not carried out, or is wrong somewhere. The best goods in the world want proper treatment, and, after all, the abuse of a thing is no argument against its use. Some quarry owners and stone merchants don't like cement concrete; it is poison to them, because it hurts their trade. It is my opinion, founded on what I have seen and know, that Portland cement concrete is grand stuff when properly made; but you can't make the 'extra' profit on it you could, unless you can forget to rightly proportion the material. I mean leave out anything on the quiet you find is more profitable when it is absent; and now mixing machines are always used on works of importance where concrete is made in any considerable quantity, that is the only way you get a chance of a bit 'extra,' at least so runs my experience.

"Bless me! when I come to think of it, it is really wonderful that some of the concrete I have cast in has set at all, and don't believe it can all have set; for, first, the cement was wrong, then the gravel was not gravel, the sand was like road siftings, no trouble was taken to proportion the materials properly, and no mixing was done rightly, only an apology for it. The water was dirty, and used anyhow, and if a lump got a bit stiff it was rolled over, broken up in the trench and watered down below. Some went in like the soup that has balls in it, and we threw the concrete (?) down just anyhow. The inspector, as I said before, knew nothing much about it, although he was a beautiful kidder and could patter sweet and pretty just as if he were courting, and the engineer was away, so the road was clear for a bit 'extra,' and we took it."

"Now, how the dickens could any concrete be right with such treatment? It is cruelty to expect it."

"I left those works, and the engineer got corpsed, so he is past blaming; but, fortunately, the middle wall of the dock that got strained the most‌—‌the one in which was some of the concrete (?) I have been telling you about‌—‌had to be removed for improvements, and when they pulled it down I heard the concrete was in layers like thick streaky bacon, a layer of gravel with hardly a bit of cement in it, then a few lumps of solid on the top and hard as all would have been if the cement, gravel, sand, proportioning, mixing, and the putting into place had been done properly; then another layer of open stuff that had stuck together a bit, and then a lot of soft oozy rubbish, like decayed cheese, bad, coarse cement, you know, that would not or could not hold together and had done the 'fly' trick, you know, had cracked about, the coarsest part of the cement The streaks were there because we watered the cement so much that it was not concrete but weak grout, and bad too; and it could not drain down because one of the thin, hardish streaks, already set, stopped it, and it was bound to make friends with the gravel and dirt somehow, although trying to shun such company by running away and so get off duty. It was the same all the way through, and there were a lot of holes in it caused by the nearly set lumps coming together and slightly sticking, and therefore preventing the other material from filling the voids. Hardly a cubic yard of the whole mass was the same.

"That is what I call a real bit of scamping; but, honestly, I did not think I was putting it in so bad as that, but I then knew hardly anything about the material. I shall never do it again, for I know I shall not get the chance, besides we all must draw the line somewhere; but there, a lot is now known about concrete that was only in the brains of a very few then.

"As the cement is now supplied to you, I often put it in a bit thick, that is when I have to find the gravel and sand. It would be the other way about under different circumstances; but at the present time, with Carey's concrete mixer‌—‌which, luckily for plunder for us, is the only machine that measures and mixes the materials mechanically, and turns out from 10 to 70 cubic yards of concrete per hour‌—‌you do not get much chance of 'extras' and none with it; and concrete mixing is now nearly done as carefully as mixing medicine, and I don't regard concrete as fondly as I used to, for no 'extras' worth thinking of are to be made out of it. My old love, consequently, is cooling off, becoming warm and perhaps distant respect, not much else; but good Portland cement concrete is the best material, bar granite, I know of, if properly used, as it is then all the same strength‌—‌that is when the Portland cement is right, the proportions, mixing, and depositing even and proper, and the gravel and sand really clean sharp gravel and sand. You see, in that case, it is uniform throughout, and, after all, what is the good of the hardest stone or brick when you have a weak mortar to join them together which cannot nearly stand the same strain in any direction as the stone or brick?"

"You are right, it is simply waste. Like deluging good spirits with pure water, and spoiling them both. Lucky you had finally left those dock works before they pulled the middle wall down, or you might have had a bad quarter of an hour in a very sultry atmosphere."

"After that we will have a toothful neat."

"That's warming and is real comfort."

"I have never had much to do with concrete, but I remember seeing a lot go in on some dock works where I had some puddle to make for the cofferdam, and I got something 'extra' out of that."

"How did you do it?"

"Well, you know, working such stuff all day and nothing else makes anyone rather sick of it, it is like breaking stones for metalling, I should think, and the weariness of it makes the big stones have a tendency to hide and cause the face to look small and even. I had a dozen men besides casuals, and all old hands at the game of 'extras.' We had to, or were supposed to, work up a certain right proportion of sand with the clay so as to prevent the puddle cracking and keep it sufficiently moist. I own we sometimes let the clay have a taste of peace; in fact, between you and me, we were going express speed, and 'extras' was the name of our engine.

"One day the resident engineer came, and somehow got up close to us rather unawares, and took us by surprise. Of course, the material ought to have been worked the same throughout, and we nearly did it, but nearly is not quite. He seemed to sniff out that all was not just as right as it might be, and said:‌—‌

"'Don't forget to work it up thoroughly. You have a good price, and it is important the clay should be uniformly mixed with a little sand.'

"'Certainly, sir.'

"I generally agree with my boss, it pays best. So I at once called out sharp to my chaps, as if all I loved in this world was at stake, 'Don't fear mixing it, lads. Get it well mixed.'

"One of them, he was a new chap to me, and belonged to the militia I found out, turned round, and said:‌—‌

"'All right, boss; I always make the broad-arrow kitchens in the camp, and the flues and the openings for the Flanders kettles, so I know how it ought to be done; but if you think I'm a white-faced doughey [i.e. a baker's man] I am not, and you had better fetch a batch of dougheys and start them at work feet and hands. It will make them sweat. That puddle, I tell you, is as well mixed as the dougheys do the different kinds of flour, and call all the bake the best and purest bread, and make it smell sweet with hay water.'"

"I suppose you silenced him quickly?"

"No, I pretended to take no notice, for I knew I had spoken too sharp, but the resident engineer smiled downwards and passed on.

"We had a heap of clay on one side and the same of sand on the other, and the inspector saw we had from time to time a small mound of clay and one of sand put separate and measured ready for mixing. We had a few piles of clay and sand at first measured exactly, and then we got used to it, and did it by sight only. We were close to the river, or rather estuary, and used to fill a barrow now and again with the sand and shoot it over the entrance jetty. A little was taken from each heap. The engineer knew his book, and would not have it worked from one or two big heaps, and the sand brought to it, but he would have separate mounds of about 20 cubic yards at a time. There were nearly 5000 cubic yards of puddle to work up, and as the clay came from the trenches so we worked it up. A kind of filling and discharging, and everything on the move.

"I made a nice thing 'extra' that way, but nearly got bowled out, for one day there was an extraordinary low tide, a low tide was expected, but a land wind was blowing great guns, and it was the lowest tide known for fifty years or so. Now, when you start the game of 'extra' profit you will agree with me, it is necessary to have someone you can rely upon, or else things may not go exactly as you expect. They may work wrong, and then you have to look out for squalls when they lay you bare and find out all. Here, I had been getting a rise out of my bosses, and blessed if old Ginger's snip, his boy, whom I paid a bit extra to do the harrowing well out, did not get a rise out of me. It caused a near shave, too.

"Well, the tide ran down till it laid dry a little sandbank, that is, some of the stuff that should have been at home in the puddle, had travelled by the wrong road by the entrance jetty. I did give Ginger's snip a talking-to, I tell you, after; but it was a near shave, as you will soon know. I saw the bank, so I sent him down the jetty with two chaps that knew what was up and got duly rewarded by me. They knew me. I never forget friends‌—‌too good, I am. Not even to borrow from them, if occasion requires, so that they should remember me in their dreams. I said to them: 'Stir up the sand, lads, for I think I saw a leg in it, and a bit of a dress; it may be there has been another midnight horror. It's really shocking!' And that was true, for I thought the sand was shocking, and that murder will out, as the saying goes. It was a shave, for just as the tide began to turn, up came the resident engineer, and there could not have been more than an inch or two over the sand, but it soon rises, as you know, and almost walks up. I had not time to call the men, and there they were, stirring away. It was lucky I thought of the leg and the woman's dress. So I shouted, 'Come up, lads, it's nothing.'

"Then the resident engineer started asking me questions; and I was afraid he might ask the men something, so I kept him as long as I could, and spun a yarn, and pointed out the spot where a body was found some time ago, and talked away like a paid spouter, for every minute that passed was good business, for the water was rising quickly, and I knew the tide would soon just about put it right. After a little while the resident engineer went away, and I was rubbing my waistcoat thinking I had been in another near squeak, but won on the post by a short head owing to jockeyship, when I saw him down below with a large black retriever, and the blessed dog was half out of the water. I kept as far away as I could, but I saw he had taken off his boots and turned up his trousers, and was walking about on the heap probing with his stick. He did not stop long, as he knew the tide was rising, and then he came to me afterwards and said that a sandbank had been deposited at least 30 feet in length.

"'Very likely, sir; but did you find the leg, or body, or dress of a woman?' 'No. But I found a lot of sand that would have been better in the puddle.' And he looked straight at me.

"Well, I had to put on my best sweet, innocent child face, and I hazarded the mild remark, 'It's the eddies that have done it. I have known them bring stuff for miles, sir.' It was no use saying from the other side or nearer, because there was no sand like we had to mix with the clay for the puddle for many miles, nor could I declare that a barge had got upset. He did not say anything more, but called his dog and went to the office. Let me impress upon you that the last 1500 or so yards of puddle had more sand in them than the first 3500. Tides I like, and they are healthy and useful; but it is the deuce to pay if you think you can go against them, as King Canute showed his courtiers, when he did the chair trick upon the sea-shore. Do you know I go so far as to think that if a floating caisson were taken about and sunk so as to lay bare the bed of the Thames in certain places, things would be found by a little digging that neither you nor me dream of, and perhaps might not like to see, for even sandbanks at certain times and places are not pleasant to gaze upon. Eh?"

CHAPTER XII.

BRICKWORK. TIDAL WARNINGS. PIPE JOINTS. DREDGING.

"You remember my old partner on the last dock works we were on?"

"Rather. He had been properly educated, and knew the time of day, and there are few things he ever had to do with he did not get a bit 'extra' out of. On that you can bet the family plate."

"Right you are. Old partner, do you know I have a weakness. I liked the old times when there was plenty of work to be had, and few that knew how to do it. Then the likes of you and me were regarded at their proper value, and estimated as worth something extra. Now there are about a million too many of us, and not half the work to be done. Old England is not like a big place that wants opening up, and it is a rare high old breeding country, and a lot of folks seem to wish it to be nothing else.

"My then partner took, labour only, a lot of brickwork in cement. It was a dock wall, and it averaged not far from 20 feet in thickness. It was a wall, and not a mere facing like little bridges. It gave a man a chance of something to work on. When a chap takes a contract, labour only, not having to find the materials, it is no use turning your attention to saving them; the only game to play is to use the mortar nearly liquid, so that it runs about of itself almost, and put some random work in between the face work and the back, and trust to mortar-rakes and grout, and oiling the human wheels as much as required. I don't like the word bribe the inspectors. For two chaps like us, that will have what we consider good work, it is not bribery, it is downright pure philanthropy that prompts us to give a sovereign away now and then in the proper and most deserving direction, which I generally find to be the inspector. I never give gold away without knowing it will come back well married, and may bring a family, and they are welcome to my best spread. That's just where our education enables us to grasp things right. What a shame it is for people to find fault with the School Board rate, when it is only about four times more than its promised highest figure, and the school buildings are such models of art and strength; and how thankful we ought to be to the teachers for their kind attendance, given for almost nothing! How pleased our old schoolmaster would be when he knew we took every advantage to make a profit somehow or other from what he taught us."

"I guess he would be, the joy might kill him; but how did you apply your schooling to the brickwork?"

"Wait, patience please! As I said before, or nearly did, there was not much face work compared with bulk in the wall. I had a lot of militia chaps, and well paid and lushed them. They were something like brickies. Bless me, the wall used to rise up; and I was half afraid if those at the office worked out the check time, and compared it with our cubic measurement, they would think I was paying all my chaps more than any other member of creation ever did, or making too big a profit to suit them, and don't you mistake. But there! the Company did the work themselves, or let it in bits, and of course the check-time game was not played anything like so strong as if we had been working for a boss contractor.

"Well, we were doing trench work, and had shoots for the materials to travel from the surface down to the wall, and the trench was about 50 feet in depth from the top to the foundation. We had one shoot for bricks and another for mortar in between each frame, and that would have been plenty if all the work had been laid to a bond, but when only about 4 feet in the front and 2 feet at the back was, and the rest raked in level, except a course or two now and again, we used to want a couple of shoots for each. I had the face of the wall made really pretty, just like a doll's house, and pointed up lovely; but let me give a bit of credit to the Company, for they gave us the best materials with which I ever had to do."

"You mean the bricks and mortar were such that it would have been a downright waste of good muscle to put the bond the same throughout, simply pampering up the materials and turning them sickly, like some people do children, so as to appear so fond of them before other people!"

"Precisely; so after my partner got the face in right, the stuff went down and in. All we had to be careful about was not to smash the bricks. We soon managed that, and we had few broken ones, for they were good, hard, and dark. Well, in they went, and when we began to work the show, some of the scenery was hard to get right. Of course the inspector began to find fault, that was what he was paid for, and was about the only way he could work round for his 'extras.' After oiling him a little, and pleasing him in the old-fashioned way, we managed gradually to overcome the natural dulness of his mind, and we became a happy crew‌—‌a lot of brickies with a single thought, and hearts that beat as one.

"Well, in the stuff went; and after working out the averages according to the rules of the exact sciences, me and my partner arrived at the conclusion accordingly that about one-half or a trifle more bricks were put in by hand, and the rest were like machine-made bread, unsoiled by hand, and therefore must have been good and pure, as those alone know who work on the same lines. My partner, in his younger days, before he took to brickwork, had been to sea, and all the men used to call him 'Captain.' When he wanted to give the chaps in the office the straight griffin, he used to say, 'Nelson's my guide.' That meant give them 'biff,' in other words, finish off the enemy as quick as you know how."

"You mean get the bricks in as fast as you can only get them in quick."

"Yes, that's it. If good old Nelson sent his shots in as fast as these bricks were squatted, all I can say is the guns did not get much time to cool. Let me give my partner all praise, for although he had a nice spot to work on‌—‌as of course the timber in the trenches hid a lot of the work, and made a nice gloom‌—‌as a precaution he kept the ladder away from the top of the trenches, so that anyone had to walk along the top strut and then get down, consequently there was not much chance of being caught; and after the bottom courses were in and the face and back right, it was easy work, because there was always time to get the road right and all went as peacefully as could be wished. But the old Captain, on the same dock, nearly overdid it one day, and all to save him scarcely one hundred pence, but he got so eager that money to him was food, and it is my opinion if he had been born rich he would have made a fine miser; but apart from that, he knew how to make a contract and what work was, and the training on board ship he had in his young days set him right, and he was always on the work looking out for a bit 'extra,' or on scout. But once he nearly overreached himself."

"How did he do that?"

"I will tell you, if you keep quiet."

"Right away."

"It happened like this, and might have wrecked the whole place, and was the consequence of working against orders. At one part of the works there was an old slope at the end of the dock which was no use without a new entrance. Where the trenches had been dug out for a wall a piece of earth was left in at the dock end, and was stepped down like a retaining wall, although only earth. Well, the orders were to keep it 4 feet above a certain level, which made it not so nice for unloading from barges as 2 feet or so. As that end of the dock was only sloped off, and left to itself, for no one ever seemed to go there, and it was a good height, and up and down a bit at top, been stuff run to spoil, my partner, the old Captain thought he might as well take another 2 feet off for about 10 feet or so, and ease the unloading the bricks, cement, and sand, and made certain it would not be noticed. Now of course it did not take long to pare a slice from that short length sufficient to help the unloading, and I should have said this was done soon after we began the brickwork. I remember the day well enough, for if I had not have happened to have been having my dinner by myself on the cofferdam, I believe we might have been flooded out and wrecked.

"The wind was blowing strong and had been for several days from the same quarter, and it brought the water up till it was heaped. Before the wind began to blow it had been very wet, and it was also the time high tides were expected, so everything worked in the direction for a real high one. I began my dinner before the usual time, feeling a bit hollow, and had done by a quarter of an hour after the whistle had blown. I was just lighting my pipe when I happened to look upon the water. It wanted about an hour or more to high water, I watched the tide flowing up, and, all of a sudden, it struck me it would be a topper; but as the cofferdam was a long way above high water, so as to stop any waves breaking over, for the estuary was nearly one mile in width, and as this dam was a really well strutted one, it did not trouble me. I dare say I smoked for nearly ten minutes, and was thinking it was a nice job, and that 'extras' would have a good look in, when, just as things that frighten you do occur to you very quickly, it struck me‌—‌How about the Captain and his two feet off, pared off, up at the trench end bank? Well, I did not stop, but went at once to the place, although a good half mile away, and was soon there. I saw it must be a near squeak, and I knew there was no chance of the entrance gates being shut because a lot of craft was waiting to go into the dock, besides it would give the office that something was wrong, and I knew the chances were a thousand to one no one would come near as it was right away one end of the works, and nothing doing there except for us when we were unloading. Most of the chaps had never been that end of the works at all. Now this was all very pretty looked at from getting a bit of 'extra,' but it was hardly the same when that game was played by the tide putting in a bit 'extra' and rising nearly 2 feet more than ever recorded before. I looked at my watch and knew the tide had about an hour yet to run up. I got out my rule and measured, and then I was sure it would not be far off two feet over the dip the old Captain had cut to save an odd penny or two. I was just turning round to go to fetch him‌—‌for I knew where he was, and of course we always let one another know, although we don't name it‌—‌when I saw him coming pretty sharp with his ganger and a few trusty chaps. I beckoned to him. He was alongside very quickly, and I said, 'The tide will be over.'

"He answered: 'I thought it might, as the bottom of the tenth step down on the landing place was just the same level as the top of the dip. I knew it by the water.'

"I said, 'There may be a chance about it, but I don't think so, for this tide is running up so strongly that I know, from experience of the estuary, that it will beat the highest tide ever recorded.'

"While I was speaking he measured, and took out his watch and timed five minutes. He measured again, and then off went his coat like greased lightning, and we all followed suit as if we were a lot of figures pulled by strings, and he shouted, 'We have not a moment to lose. It will rise 1 foot 6 inches above where we are.'

"He then clenched his teeth. 'Planks, stakes, bags, tarpaulins, bring anything you can get, and come back at once or we are drowned out, wrecked, and lost, all ends up.'

"We soon got some stakes in, and some planks, and we set to work, all six of us, raising the dip in the bank the old captain had made. He turned white as a sheet, and said, 'She is on us, simply romping in. Half a dollar each if you can stop her.'

"We all worked like black devils flying from torture, for we only had half an inch start of the tide. It was a sort of life and death race, and death for choice.

"'She is still rising, Captain.'

"He then cried out: 'By thunder! She's over the far end at the plank dip. Once really over, and all will go.'

"He stood still for a moment and then dashed to the place and laid down on his side full length, and shouted: 'Give me a short plank, and my coat.' He would not get up although we asked him. He had got the frights, so we let him be. He placed the plank in front of him, and his coat over it, and there we were filling in stuff at the back of him as fast as we could, and putting in stakes for the planks. The tide was still rising, He turned his head, and said: 'Are you ready?'

"'Yes.'

"He then rose, and a pretty mess he was in.

"'By thunder! that was a close shave. If we had only had another tarpaulin or two we should have been right sooner. There was some sand there, I remember we upset a wagon-load.'

"He looked scared, but soon brightened up and said: 'We are right now though. The tide has stopped, but keep at it, lads, we must bury everything and get a good 2 feet higher, for if once the water runs over, the tail-race of the largest mill stream in creation will be a fool to it, and it would only be a question of minutes before the whole earth-bank would burst and let in ten acres or more of dock water, and the sea, and perhaps break up a lot of craft and wreck the whole place. Lads, I well remember seeing a catch-water earth-bank give way, and it is soon over when the water runs down the back slope, and there is not much chance of stopping a breach.'

"The men went away, and the captain said to me: 'My word, I shall not forget this.' He then sat down and wiped his forehead and said on the quiet to me: 'There is one blessing, no one on the work knows about it but us, and, if we are careful, no one will.'

"'You had better get home at once and have a rub down and change and sixpenn'orth or more, hot. I know what to do, and will see all is put right.' He took the hint and skipped, but came back in half an hour, and then we had a talk.'

"I tell you what it is, one can play a lot of tricks on land, and get 'extras' many roads, but water won't stand it. It is too honest, and turns upon you and soon finds you out. I never did like water much, you can't beat it, that's why I left the sea. It's an unsociable element, and is most always in the way except when you're boating, washing, fishing, or mixing something. You can't educate it so as to look at work from an 'extras' point of view, for it cares for no one.

"Take my advice and always give it a margin and allow in temporary structures a good 3 feet above the highest recorded water line, unless you want the work wrecked, and then add a height necessary to keep out the waves."

"You are right, for I remember getting a bit 'extra' out of some pipe joints. Instead of making all the joints according to the specification, we made a good many with brown paper and covered them up quickly. The pipes were laid at a depth of some 20 feet, and it took a considerable time before they began to leak. At last there was a burst up, but it was so powerful that all the jointing was washed out, so they never knew who was to blame. The place where that happened is fully a couple of hundred miles away, and will never see me in it again as I did not like the people, so I said to myself, all right, I will leave something behind that will tickle you up, and cost the lot of you some beans to put right, and I did, and so got even with them all. It was one of those lovely small towns where everyone knew everybody's business much better than their own."

"Do you remember Carotty Jack?"

"Yes, rather. You mean him who was up to snuff in spoon-bag dredging. 'Old tenpenny labor' only was his 'chaff' name."

"He was the sharpest card, so I was told, on the river for getting 'extras' out of dredging. He was measured by the barge, and paid accordingly. I confess I don't quite know how he worked it, but he did for years, and never got found out. You see, what is ten or twenty yards of dredging, nothing either way? It is never noticed, and you can't measure under the water as you can on land. It can't be done, except in new cuts, when new cross-sections have been taken over the ground. The beds of most rivers being always more or less on the move, water then becomes a nice servant to work a bit of 'extras' out of, and that is about the only way I am aware of where it comes in useful in that direction.

"How Carotty did it, as I said before, I don't quite know, although I saw the thing, but he used to work it somehow or other by movable boards fixed on a pivot. He had three or four of them, and could fit them together just about as quick as the roulette tables are fastened by racecourse thieves and stowed away. They had two flaps at the sides covered with stiff tarpaulin, and the ends were closed by planks loosely fastened by a catch to the pivot. They were well made and fitted splendidly, just like hinged box-lids, and the whole thing was similar to a box with the bottom out and the sides hinged and ends to slide up and down. I believe Carotty would have made furniture A 1, if he had turned his attention to it.

"He had an old ship's boat of his own. The apparatus was stowed away in it, and I might further say it resembled a shallow box upside down, with the lid off, working on a saddle, and the flaps at the sides moved as the box got pushed down on either side; but they kept the stuff from getting under it almost always; for when they measured the barge-load for depth, if they put the measuring-rod down on one side and touched the board, it went up a foot or so on the other, and no one suspected anything. The barges were all narrow ones, as usual with spoon-bag dredging. The measurer used to walk round the barge and be busy trying the stuff here and there, to see if there was no gammon. The mud was thick, and went up and down very slowly. Carotty always had two or three of these boxes fixed on the saddle, and just the right distance to be out of reach, and he did not fix them on the same line. He kept the frames two or three feet apart, so that if by any chance two men started probing on the same line he would soon shift them a little, and say it was an odd brick, or a tin, or a bottle, and then everything went down easily upon both sides, and for one place where they were extra sharp, he made the machinery in very short lengths, and zigzag fashion. He told me he got pretty nearly from six to ten yards extra out of every barge, according as the stuff and the size of the barge was kind towards 'extras.' Of course, from the solid dredging he had the best haul. Carotty was a cool card at the game of 'extras,' and had a face on him like a nun, and could look that innocent and lamb-like as only humbugs can. He used to laugh over it.

"He told me that he had known the time when no 'extra' machinery such as his was needed, for plenty of water, some boxes, a false bottom, and a few planks, were all the things that were wanted. Then they had to be given up, and he said he was really compelled to make himself a present of the first small pump he could privately annex, and soon found the chance on one of the works where he had a little contract.

"He got some old bags, mended them, and soaked them in some solution that made them tight, and he used to fill them with water and weight them with a stone or two. He had a rope with a draw-knot attached to short lengths of line so that he could let the bags loose or fasten them against a hook when he discharged the barge out at sea or elsewhere. Generally he used to unscrew the stopper of each bag at the side of the barge, and when on the return journey let out the water and then haul up. Although it cost him some labour, he said he used to get one way or other a bit of gold 'extra' by that means every barge load, or, rather, what was thought to be; and sometimes he did not let the water out of the bags at all if the people he had to deal with were easy, but now times were very hard on him, as he had to work at night to keep the machinery right, and he thought it very cruel of them, as it gave him a very short eight hours' recreation, as was the cry now for the third part of a day.

"He was clever, and I believe he could have made an iron-clad out of old fire-irons and coal scuttles if they had given him enough goods, plenty of time, and paid him sufficiently, and you may bet the ship would have answered its rudder all serene.

"He told me he actually got twopence a yard more on one occasion by using the boxes right for a week, on the ground of extra hard dredging, for, of course, all the stones and heaviest dredgings fall to the bottom. He put in his machinery pretty close together, and heaped up the stuff in the middle, and did the injured innocence business properly, and after they had done a lot of probing about, during which he told me the machinery worked lovely, they gave him another twopence a cubic yard. Measurement by the ton would have spoilt that game, though; but then it was not canal dredging he was doing, but in the open. Give Carotty his due, I was told there was not a man on the river who could dredge to a section as he could, and he did the work quickly and well, but he always managed to get paid for more than he did, and he told me he never meant to do otherwise. He said he considered he was cheap goods at the price, and wholesome; but he complained tremendously of the dredgers and excavators introduced lately, for they spoilt him, and there was but little chance of 'extras' now worth the trouble or the risk. In consequence, he had given up doing dredging."

CHAPTER XIII.

PERMANENT WAY.

"Will you listen to me for a few minutes?"

"Yes. I notice you have something pent up in your head."

"Well, this was rather an amusing bit I am going to tell you, but was a near shave for real squalls, as you will agree when you hear about it.

"I got the guv'nor to let me do a bit of linking in at so much per chain. Of course, he supplied the rails‌—‌they were flange rails‌—‌sleepers and fastenings, and they were all right. I linked in the road. We had a mixed up permanent way, nine by four and a half half-rounds, and ten by five rectangular sleepers. Check pattern, an odd and even road. Between you and me, I think mixing them up betwixt the joint sleepers is a mistake. It makes the road stiff one place and loose at another, and a train cannot run steadily, and I would rather have all rectangulars, and put them wider apart, and give the rail flange a bit of bearing, for half-rounds are mere sticks, although they are lighter to handle, and in that respect nicer. You see they have only about three-fifths of the bulk of rectangulars, and when they are adzed less than that, and not more than half the bearing for the rail flange. If I had to do the maintenance, no half-rounds for me, still they do for light traffic and for cheap agricultural lines."

"I agree, they are temporary goods."

"Well, it was funny, but here we had too much and too little of a good thing, and were as near in hot squalls as could be. I expect they made a mistake in loading them; anyhow, young Jack, my ganger, found he had no half-rounds, but a lot of rectangulars. He is a bit impetuous, and would not wait, it's not in him, so he put in all rectangulars that day, and, of course, with the result that they had not enough rectangulars left for the other road all through, so about six or seven chains were nearly all half-rounds, and he actually placed one rectangular one side of a rail joint, and a half-round on its back, flat end upwards, on the other, and so a lot of the half-rounds did duty for rectangulars.

"It was a bit of a scurry, and as soon as the road was in the spikers, ballasters and packers were on us, and no time for thinking. Well, neither me nor Jack gained much by the fun, except our men would have been stopped, and they were not, and things would have been put out a bit for the day. My guv'nor did not know, or would have made us pull it all up and put it in right. Now, they knew the number of sleepers, &c., that had been served out, and had sufficient confidence in me to be sure I never scamped the materials, except a bit of ballast here and there, and that is soon made up.

"Of course, there was no mistake six or seven chains of road were weak, and I told Jack to put in a little extra good ballast and pack the sleepers well there, and what he did extra at that place was to come out of the part where all the rectangulars were, for I never throw away or lose anything on purpose."

"Quite right, we agree. Shake, for I'm hearty to you."

"He understood how I wanted the wind to blow, and it would have gone on all serene, but you know, just when you think you are out of a scrape, you sometimes find you are in it, or as near to it as wants 'an old parliamentary hand' to explain and fog away. I was down at the junction, when I saw the engineer, and some swells with him. The resident engineer was away that day. After a bit of jaw among them, they beckoned to me, and said they wanted to go to the end of the line, the very place where some of the sleepers were lying turned on their round faces. There was a bit of luck. I felt dead wrong. However, they had to walk about a couple of miles, and then wait till the engine had returned with the empties; so I said to the engineer, 'Please excuse me, sir, but I will arrange that the engine is at the ballast hole at four o'clock, as you wish, and I will be back to attend upon you as quickly as I can.'

"I scampered up the slope of the cutting and out with an envelope. I always keep one or two about me handy. I tore out a leaf of my note-book, and called young Snipper, the brake boy, and said to him, 'Jump on old Leather's nag. Take this to young Jack, and I'll make it all right for you when I see you next time; but go quickly, and give this letter to no one else but young Jack. If he is away for more than a few minutes bring the letter back to me. No‌—‌wait till he comes up, and send someone to fetch him to you. You understand.' 'Yes, sir, I know what you mean.' 'Now do a bit of the Johnny Gilpin business.' Off he went, and was busy.

"This is what I wrote to young Jack, my ganger:‌—‌'Bosses has come, and will be up to you in about an hour. X.... them. Cover up the ends of the half-rounds, and sprinkle them pretty with fine ballast if you can do it in an hour. Then shunt the empties or the full wagons over where the half-rounds are, and look innocent, as if you had never moved above a foot all day, and be busy, or I'll pull your throat out, much as I love you. Smooth it right, and leave rest to me. Pull all your gumption out ready. Keep this, and hand it back to me. Show no one, or I'll have you hung. If I find all right, there are two pints, and something else.' That's what I call a business letter. No double meaning about it.

"Young Snipper got there in double quick time, and young Jack was there as well. I saw he had carried out my letter of instructions. Still, I knew the engineer would be likely to twig, as he was near to being hawk-eyed. Now, I felt sure they would be hanging about for an hour, perhaps two, as most of them had never been up there before, and they thought of carrying the line on further to somewhere or other, but they did not on account of the expense, for several tunnels, viaducts, high retaining walls, and other heavy work would be required. Here was the very place for a rack railway on some system like Abt's, it seemed to me. I saw one at work in Germany, and know they are safely used in Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and in North and South America. As you know, you cannot nicely work a railway by adhesion only much above a gradient of one in fifty with sharp curves upon it, or one in forty on a straight line, consequently the rack is the thing to use then, I fancy, for on the Abt rack railway the pinions on the engine can be easily put in and out of gear on the rack, and the journey be continued by simple adhesion, as by an ordinary locomotive, and the rack system works all right round moderate curves.

"I should think, in hilly parts of the country there are many places where 4 feet 8½ inch gauge railways could be laid out almost on the surface of the ground, and at such gradients as about one in fourteen, and there should be no difficulty in working them safely, because similar lines have been worked for many years. There must be many little feeder lines that end nowhere almost now, that could be so continued over the hills to a main line, and thus join two large traffic trunk lines, and raise the feeder from obscurity to some importance, and from the state of a mere agricultural 5l. to 10l. per mile per week line of railway to one earning more than double. However, that's by the way. Now, my best game was to draw the swells away as quickly as I could, and yet not show them my hand. I started badly, though, for I said, 'Gentlemen, I think a shower is coming up over the hills, and if you command me, I will tell the engine driver to run you down quickly by himself, and come back for these empties. It won't delay the work in any way, gentlemen all.' They said, 'Never mind; if there was a shower they could stand upon the sleepers by the wagons and get sufficient shelter.'

"That meant on the sleepers I was trying to hide. Just fancy, the very half-rounds that troubled me. I felt I could sink through the earth, as I saw the engineer's eyes were doing full time as lighthouse revolving lights. I thought, he will have me chucked from this job, sure as half-rounds are not rectangulars, for he would not have bad work.

"Now the wagons did not quite reach all over the half round road, the swells took to walking between the roads. Why, I never knew, but they did. I felt certain, if any of them took to walking upon the half-rounds, they would find it all out. I got to young Jack, and on the quiet he returned to me my letter to him, which I burnt afterwards. By luck, one of the directors‌—‌that's what they were‌—‌drew the attention of the engineer to something on the station road close by; and all except two of them passed on, but two directors kept behind with me, and one started walking on the half-rounds, and on those too that were on their tops, as should have been uppermost, and one nearly got upset before he travelled five yards. So I went for him there and then, and said, 'Please, sir, the road is not packed yet, and has only just been put in to take these few empties. It will be as firm as a rock in two days, sir.' I left the rest to him. He looked at me and said, 'I hope it will be, or passengers will think they are travelling over the Rocky Mountains.'

"I smiled, and looked as pleasant and truthful as I knew how, but thought, hope with you, as with me, is grand goods, but fact is better business. They were a smart lot, and no one was going to move them on till they had seen just about all they felt inclined to, but I had a bit of luck then, and ever after have liked birds."

"What was it?"

"Well, a cocktail rose almost at our feet. The line passed between two coppices. From that moment I was safe, as both the directors talked of nothing but shooting. I kept the game alive for all I knew and more than I did, that's certain, and before I had done had made out it was the finest part of the whole country for game, although they ran a bit wild, and wanted stopping. It is convenient to always ease down a strong sentence, then you can alter its meaning a bit when what you have said don't agree with what you are saying; so I warned them the birds wanted stopping. They all got talking and pointing about till they had no time to spare to get back so as to catch the train at the junction. I tell you it was a near squeak, and shook my constitution more than a trifle, and no fault of mine, but it ended all serene."

"Your escape reminds me of one I had. It was a long while ago, must be about forty years back, when railways in many parts were a sort of novelty, and the natives used to turn out, swells and all, to see what was going on, and made a line a free show. One day about seven or eight swells came bearing down on me. One I knew had put a lot of money in the line, although he was not a director, and I have no doubt got it well back in a few years by the good the railway did his estate, for houses began to spring up all round soon after we had finished. I remember, and you will, that old Jack Slurry used to say married folks were nothing to a new railway for increasing the population in certain parts. It brings people together as never could come before, and so up goes the number of mouths, and no sooner do houses rise than shops follow, then churches and chapels and clubs and halls and so on like a procession, till the old folks almost wonder where they are. I'm talking a bit astray of my subject, and will now to it again.

"These swells came straight to me and asked me to show them through a few of the cuttings, and I did. I met my ganger in one, and managed to get in front of them and ask on the quiet who they were. He said, 'Them is nobs. They be hanteaquariums. They are searching for as old goods as can be found!' I knew what he meant, so I broke a small boulder or two and showed them the impressions of shells, and I called to my young Snipper and he got them a specimen each, and they were pleased. One gave me a quid when they left. They were real gentlemen, at least one was; and it is only charitable to suppose the others were in company, and this one was banker!"

"I agree with you."

"After looking at a few of the cuttings, and my putting in some pleasant words which seemed to be food to them, one of them opened a gate and they commenced to walk back along the fields and through the wood, near to where a culvert is, and close to a bit of marsh. They did not seem to mind the dirt or brushwood, and they asked me to come with them, and point out and say anything I thought they would like to hear, and I did. Perhaps they would have liked to have known what the prices were I was paid, but I had not the heart to distract their minds from their own true-love study to such a plain thing as £ s. d. I ought to have told you our engineer we used to call 'Old Fangbolts.' They were his hobby, and it is my opinion that if he has as long fangs to his teeth as the bolts he would have put down, when they get decayed he will know what pain is, and wish they were short spikes. He had his way, of course, although there was a great waste of metal. Now fangbolts are good things for getting a through grip of the sleepers when the fangs are screwed on tight, but still they don't keep the rails from spreading much more, if any, and I rather think less, than flat-faced spikes of fair length. At least, that is my experience."

"And so it is mine."

"Between you and me the chap that first had the stern end of a bolt put uppermost in the rail, so that he could be sure the nut was on, knew what he was about, because fangs are nasty goods to screw on, and, bless you, tricks are sometimes played that way. I have known them just turned round once and then wedged by a piece of ballast, and they appeared to be tight; and when a bit of the road had to be taken up and the fang had got loose it was on the premises‌—‌perhaps, it is truer to say, just outside and at the door‌—‌and then you could always say the threads were wrong and blame the maker, or wriggle out and wrestle with the subject in the direction that looked the most serene."

"You mean work your lay according to circumstances."

"Precisely. Besides I have had two fang bolts with triangular fangs to fix in the flange of a rail almost in line, one each side of the web, and they could not be both screwed tightly, for the points of the fangs under the sleeper met when you turned them. This time, of course, none of these nobs knew what a fangbolt was, and if I had told them I dare say at first they might have believed it was a Roman tooth, or a piece of chain armour, or part of an early Briton's war paint. Well, we were walking through a wood‌—‌it belonged to one of them‌—‌and clearing our way, for the brushwood was rather thick, when we came to a small mound, and I own I did not know what it was. One of the swells smiled, and said, 'How very interesting. This is a tumulus.' I said, 'Excuse me, gentlemen, but I am always glad to learn anything, and you don't mean to say some earth has tumours and, swells a bit, because if you will tell me how to work it it would save me and others money and a lot of work forming embankments, if it does not cost too much to start the swelling.'

"They smiled, and one said 'A tu-mu-lus was not a tumour, but an artificial mound raised over those who were buried in ancient times.' I touched my hat and said 'I thought there was something wrong, gentlemen;' and told them I knew there were a good many women round these parts that had wens and they swell up as big as marrows, but I did not know the ground had tumours, and was eager to learn it had, as I thought I saw a useful application of them, and they might be a new form of wonder produced by inoculation. One of them then said, 'No doubt the women have their whims and playful humours, but he trusted they were free from wens or other tumours.' Then they all laughed, and one of them hazarded a remark and said, 'This is the ... formation.' It sounded to me like upper railroadian formation. I forgot myself, and turned round sharp to him and said, 'It is nothing of the kind, gentlemen. There is no such thing as a upper railroadian formation.' They did stare. I went straight on, and said straight out, 'There is no formation here at all, besides upper railroadian formation is utterly unknown on railways. The formation is at the bottom of the cuttings or the tops of the banks and nowhere else."

"They stared just as if I was going to shoot them, and one of them laughed and said, 'I am afraid there is a slight misunderstanding somewhere.' Then the others smiled. I thought it was time to stop my tongue. The same one turned to me and said, 'My friend was alluding to the geological character of the locality. It undoubtedly is Upper Si-lu-rian.' So I touched my hat, and said, 'I hoped they would excuse me, and would they kindly remember I was a bit rough.' They all said, 'Oh! certainly!' and they seemed to like the business that had just passed, and were enjoying themselves, I could see that.

"Well, all this passed when we pulled up at the mound, which was about fifty feet away from the line, and in the thick of the brushwood. One of them began poking about with a stick, and bless me, I saw about half-a-dozen fangs here and there. I thought to myself it is lucky Old Fangbolts is not here. He would have shot me, and killed himself right off, or gone loose. I twigged what the mound was made of. It was only a small one, but the gentleman was at first mistaken, and no wonder, because there are a lot of real ancient mounds round and about the wood. However, this mound was a mixture of fangs that should have been screwed on the bolts and were not, that's certain, and earth and turf, and had been artfully covered up, for it was quite green except one little streak. I expect some vermin had tried it, and found it no good, and scratched away a bit, and bared it. Anyhow, it might have been awkward for me, for one of the party picked up a rusty old fang, and turned to the other nobs, and said, 'I don't think that is very ancient; at least, if it be so, it is a Birmingham-made ancient relic, and has been deposited upon the wrong battlefield.'

"I believe that was only a sly hint to me that he meant the battlefield to be the permanent way; but, of course, I took no notice. He threw down the fang, and then we all walked on. No patter is sometimes the best game to play, and look as if you were learning a lot. However, on being asked about the mound, I said, 'It's only an old earth mound that has grown over green. It may have been there fifty years, not more, perhaps less.'

"Really, it was full of fangs that ought to have been screwed on the bolts, a heap of them, too. So I gave the office in the right quarter, and two of us went next morning very early, and soon dug a hole, and buried the mound, and carefully cast the excavation as close by as possible, and covered it up with a nice green top, so as to look quite natural and pretty, and when we had done we considered we had improved the scenery. It was a near squeak though, and it was lucky no engineer was with them, or I should have been had.

"It is my opinion, from what I have noticed, that the engine does a good deal to keep down the rails, and as long as the rails and sleepers are right, and the ballast good, and the sleepers well packed, the fastenings have more to prevent the rails spreading, and the road bursting than keeping the rails down, although, of course, that is necessary and should be done as well."

"I think you are quite right there."

"Old Fangbolts was all for the through grip, and did not seem to care much about preventing spreading. Well, engineers work in all grooves. Some have one way of thinking, some another, and all perhaps are partly right, and if they would but balance accounts, instead of harping on one string, it would be a smoother world."

"There we agree."

"Did you ever get a bit 'extra' out of rock ballast?"

"No; never had a chance."

"I did this way. Of course, rock ballast is not equal to shingle and clean gravel, but there is more chance of 'extra' profit, for you can pitch it in big, if you have a nice cover of small ballast, so as to make it look pretty at the finish, and like a garden path, and as occasion offers you can pare off the cess between the ballast wall and the top of the slope in embankments and the foot of the slope in cuttings, a couple of inches or so and sometimes get paid the specified depth that way, although the real depth of ballast throughout is not within 2 or 3 inches of it on the average. When the guv'nors are walking over the line keep them on the outside rail on curves as much as you can, as the cant makes the ballast wall look big. You have to be careful with the packing under the rail, because, if you don't mind, it may happen the centre of the sleeper is on a bit of rock, and then the sleeper may split when doing the see-saw trick as the trains pass and sway about.

"Just so. You must be careful not to pack them upon a middle pivot."

"I had two chaps who would almost have done for masons. They used to pack the sleepers with a few lumps where the rails rested on them, just to get the rail top nice and the rest was filled up anyhow, like nature on the sea shore; and we can't do wrong in taking a hint there, you know, for the cue is right, particularly when it runs towards 'extra' profit. Still, I don't like to chance breaking a sleeper's back, so I let them lie easy between the rails, or rather under the parts of the sleepers where no rails rest."

"I understand. You pack the sleepers only where they are under the rail-flange."

"Yes. One day the engineer said to the inspector who was a kind-hearted man and bred right, 'Mind the sleepers are evenly packed and not with large pieces of rock.' He called me up and repeated it extra treble to me. 'Very well, sir; but some of the rock will soon weather, and don't you think it better to keep it a bit large rather than small? The quarry runs very uneven. Some of the rock is as hard as nails, sir, and some soft, and it is not exactly the best ballast to handle or in the world; and if you will excuse me, don't you think, sir, on these soft banks another 3 inches under the sleeper would be advisable?'

"He did not seem to want to agree, but after a week, an order came from my guv'nor for 3 inches extra depth upon all banks. That was a good stroke, as it enabled me to do with larger stuff, and lessened the breaking it up. He was right in what he did, and so was I. I like rock ballast for 'extras,' although the walling is a nuisance. There is more chance for expansion of profits than in gravel ballast, and that is a great recommendation to us, anyhow, and is good enough apart from what things really are. I gave the tip on the quiet in the quarry to send half the rock down a trifle bigger, and it did not want so much getting or handling in the quarry, so they liked the new order, and it saved some breaking. Consequently I prefer rock ballast that weathers quickly sometimes, although, of course, an engineer should avoid it for ballast if he can, and the money allows."

CHAPTER XIV.

"EXTRA" MEASUREMENTS. TOAD-STOOL CONTRACTORS, TESTIMONIALS.

"Have you managed to get a bit 'extra' out of measurements?"

"Yes, occasionally, but that game is about played out. In the good old times they used to let us all kinds of work, for we did business in company more then than we do now, and what one did not know the other did, and so we could do pretty nearly everything except metal work, so long as they supplied us with the materials.

"I have already named about the 'extra' depth of foundations in bridges, and pipes that were not so large as thought. I have also got a bit 'extra' from side ditching when they had taken no cross sections of the ground by leaving a few buoys or mounds at the highest parts. I have also had a trifle out of the cuttings by rounding off the slopes a few inches when they were long but working right to the slope peg at top and nicking in an inch or two at the foot of the slope; but the game is hardly worth the candle, as they have almost given up soiling the slopes. Then there was a chance both ways. You got more measurement than the actual excavation, and also a bit 'extra' for soiling that was not put in, but it does not run into enough money to make it pay safely, and as the slopes and formation are so much on show the fun is hardly worth the risk. There is more to be had, so far as earthworks are concerned, in road approaches than railway cuttings, and in docks than either."

"I think you are right there."

"You see the earthwork is not so much in patches in dockwork, but all together, and there is often as much in an acre or so of dock as in a whole railway four or five miles in length, and inches in dockwork are worth remembering. Besides they are not noticed so much, and the excavation is soon covered up; and if it is in clay, and found out, you can always say to the bosses‌—‌'I never saw such clay to swell in patches.' Be sure to say 'in patches' for then you have an excuse handy if the clay 'swells' nowhere else except at the place you have not excavated to the right depth. You can generally get the surface not exactly level throughout, and you have a large space to work on then, and every inch means sovereigns. Really I think it does no one any harm, and does good to me if the bottom is a trifle elevated. It comes rather easy to most of us to make ourselves think a thing is good and nice when it would cost us something to think otherwise."

"Yes. Money and our wishes usually work on the same main line."

"I once got done out of a bit 'extra' measurement by an engineer really lovely."

"Did you. How was that?"

"I don't mind telling you, but there will be squalls if you blab. It happened like this. It was a line that had been commenced and most of the easy work done. It was in the days when every jerry-builder and parish sewer contractor, and big linen-draper too, thought he was a railway and dock contractor. You know they borrowed a bit from a local bank, and would take any contract from a bridge of balloons to the moon to a tunnel through the earth to Australia. Channel Tunnels, Forth Bridges, and Panama Canals would have been toys to them, and they could have made them on their heads. They sprung up just like toad-stools‌—‌can't call them mushrooms, it would be a libel on the plants‌—‌and every one of them thought they were quite as good as Brassey, and could have given him points. They had cheek, that was all, just like quack doctors. Well, what with, so they told me, big local loan-mongers to work the oracle and swim with them, and general recommendations‌—‌which I never take much notice of unless I know what a man has seen or done‌—‌saying they were full of the sublimest honesty and wisdom as ever had been known, and were that clever as few indeed could hope to be, the game was worked trumps for a time. Tests, not general testimonials, is my motto. What you have done or seen done, not what people are kind enough to say they think you can do, and which they don't know you can do. The man that asks a chap that he is friendly with to write a recommendation has his sentimental feelings worked on, and then truth takes a back seat, and of course you are bound to say your friend is the best man that could be made for the place, just that and nothing else. It costs a chap nothing to write it, and it is only very few that care to refuse, because it does not do to tell a man whom you wish to be friendly with that you don't think much of him, and that he is quite sufficiently a shirker and polite humbug to suit a good many, or that your own private opinion is he is not far off being twin-brother to a mouse-coloured beast of burden that brays. It is not good form, so we all, from kindness I suppose, write pretty of one another except when we are owed money and can't get it, then adjectives are often necessary, and as strong as you can find, with a few put in as are only known to chaps like you and me, and are not taught in schools, although they learn a lot there as they should not. Do you know when I read general testimonials I always think what a lot of saints and Solomons there are wanting situations, and it must be only the sinners and fools as are in harness. What you want to know from a reliable source is, how did a chap get on upon any particular bit of work he had to do, and have it specified what it was, and in what position he was, and whether all was and is right. Therefore, if I asked for a testimonial I want one specially written for the occasion and with reference to the kind of work that is in hand, and not as if I was going to let a man walk out with my daughter. I name this because, between you and me, I've found when a man is praised up as a sort of saint, and nothing said as to what he has done in work that he is near to being either a humbug or an ass. That was just the case here, for it was to one of these toad-stool contractors that the directors let the first contract, and engineers who do not advise their directors to have nothing to do with such public works contractors (!) I think deserve all the trouble they get into. Surely it is better to have a contractor who knows what work is and should be, even if he has but a small capital, than one who knows next to nothing about construction, and is financed by some loan-monger, or is at the mercy of some wire-puller?"

"I say, you are hot on the question."

"Well, I consider it about poisons some works that would otherwise have been made all right, and would have paid well too at the original capital. Besides it ought to be known a man must be specially educated to properly execute large public works, and should be bred an engineer, for one that can make shanties, dust-bins and privies, may blossom into a jerry runner-up of two-story stucco villas that have the faces and insides covered with lime and mud and half-penny paper, but it wants a contractor that is just about an engineer to know how to properly carry out railways, docks, bridges, canals, harbours, and all sea works and similar undertakings, and not a bell-pull mender and drain maker, because then he hardly knows anything himself of what has to be done and he is at the mercy of others. He tenders at figures below what he ought, and then the work cannot be properly executed, or the easy portion is done somehow or other and then the man goes smash. It is just the difference between our sterling building firms and the jerry-shanty-raisers who ought not to be called builders. Well, this one started with a rattle and scraped about, and then went to splinters. That's why I have named it, and because on this railway there was a road diversion. About a quarter of it was excavated and it was in an awful mess. It was in gravelly sand, and taken out in dabs, and in and out, all widths and depths.

"I thought I saw a chance of a bit 'extra' and said nothing. One day I got rather fierce for 'extras,' and I sniffed out some small heaps at intervals up the approach. They were about a yard in height and four or five yards round. I felt sure they had not been put on the cross sections, which I got to know had been taken in some places as close as 15 feet apart, so I thought, 'Before I get the wagon roads in and move another heap, I will see the young guv'nor.'