“I’ve been thinking, Frank, that it is a pity you don’t make up your mind to set to at work in England. Fred and I have plenty of work all over the country; we can’t be everywhere at once, and it would be a very great advantage to us to have some one we can rely upon as ourselves. Of course you don’t understand engineering work, but for earthworks, for example, mere pick and barrow work, the men only want a good ganger, and the master’s eye over them. I have just got a contract for twenty miles of railway in Yorkshire; now if you like to come down, I will make a fair calculation, and give you the earthwork. The great thing with navvies is for them to like the man they work for. You are just the sort of man they would be likely to get on with. You will save me one or two inspectors, and this sort of work is always done cheaper by piece work. It is a good thing to get into, you know, Frank; you would not perhaps make very much the first job, but you would learn the business, and be able to do well afterwards.” Frank was silent a short time. “I am very much obliged to you, uncle, and personally I should like nothing better. In fact it is just the sort of thing to suit me. It is your contract, uncle, not Fred’s? because, you see, I don’t mind working under you or any man older than myself, but I should not like working under a fellow of my own age, especially a cousin.” “It is mine, Frank. Between ourselves, I have determined to keep this matter in my own hands. Fred and I don’t always agree.” “But to take a contract for work of that sort requires capital, does it not, uncle?” “Very little, Frank. You see the men are paid once a week, or once a fortnight, as the case may be, and the work is measured up, and paid for by the contractor once a month. So in fact you would only require a fortnight’s pay for the men. Of course at first the work begins upon a small scale, as it is impossible, until the cuttings are fairly opened, to put very many men on. Two or three hundred pounds would be enough for a beginning.” “I could manage that,” Frank said. “I have spoken to the official assignee of the Bank, and have told him I am ready to give up every halfpenny I have to meet the call, but that I must have the proceeds of my furniture to pay other little debts, and so on, and I expect after I have cleared them off to have a hundred and fifty or two hundred pounds left. If I had been going to emigrate, I should have asked my wife’s friends to have helped me with as much more. One can ask friends to help when one is going abroad for good. Well, uncle, of course I cannot decide at once, but I will let you know to-morrow or next day.” “Do, Frank; it is a good thing to get into, I can assure you, and as we are likely to have plenty of work, I think it is a really good opening; far better than going out to the colonies.”