“Yes; I have just had a talk with him and four of his directors. We are to have a new contract, with increased estimates, and a square deal all around. And bygones are to be bygones.” Eben Grillage rocked his head slowly back and forth on the pillows, and this time the grim smile was almost ghastly. “You might have waited until I was safely under ground, you and Vinnie, before you began on your Utopian house-wrecking,” he said, with a touch of humor that was too bitter to be merely sardonic. “Are you trying to tell me that Ford is going to pay more than the original contract calls for?” “Just that--for the right kind of work. I had to argue for a solid hour, but I carried my point.” “I suppose you told him that the old buccaneer was as good as dead, and that the Golden Rule had been taken out of its wrappings and polished up so you could see your face in it?” At this the buccaneer’s daughter broke in, speaking for the first time in the brisk interchange of question and reply. “I can’t let you torture David that way!” she protested. “He speaks of his debt to you, and you have spoken of it; can’t you see that he is trying to pay it in the biggest, finest way there is?” Again the big head wagged on the pillows. “You’ll tell me, you two, that it is the day of the new generation, and that I’m only a wornout back-number. Maybe it’s so. But Utopia isn’t here yet, and the world I’ve fought in ... but what’s the use? You two wouldn’t see it my way if I should talk till midnight. What is it that you want to do, David?” David slipped an arm around Virginia to make what he was about to say a joint declaration. “We mean to have you live to hear the Grillage Engineering Company called the squarest contracting firm in the business; to see the time when its bid will be the highest one made on a job, and yet will be the bid that is accepted. That is how we shall try to pay some part of the big debt. You’ll let us try for it, won’t you?” For a full minute the fierce eyes were closed and the massive figure outlined under the bed-clothes lay motionless and rigid. When the eyes were unclosed the king of the contractors was himself again, in curt decision and terseness of speech, at least. “Have your way, both of you,” he growled. “It isn’t my way, and you can’t hope to teach an old dog new tricks. Find Oswald, and we’ll draw up some kind of a document that will put you in the saddle and give you the authority to make the deal with Ford and his lawyers. And say: tell Oswald to bring me a cigar--the blackest one he can find.... No, I don’t care a damn what the doctor says!” * * * * *