“Practically nothing more than the technical articles in the engineering journals have told me.” “Well, it’s a right sizable job, and we have the contract. We had a fellow named Lushing out there as chief, but I had to let him go.” “Incompetent?” said David. “No; competent as the very devil. But he welshed; let himself be bought up by the railroad company.” “How was that?” “Just plain crooked; gave us the double-cross; chummed in with the railroad staff; took favors, and all that. Any time he wanted a special to run down to Brewster for a night off, he got it--and we paid for it.” Having his recent experience in mind, David Vallory understood perfectly. With a man of the Lushing type in charge as chief constructing engineer there would naturally be no cutting of corners on the hard-and-fast specifications; no saving of money for the Grillage treasury. “It seems to me that plain business loyalty is one of the things you buy, or ought to buy, with the salaries you pay,” was his disposal of the Lushing case. “Lushing is a fise-dog, and he has proved it by going over to the railroad engineering staff as chief inspector,” rasped the man-driver. “What do you think about that?--going over to the other side and carrying with him all the information that his job with us had given him?” David was by this time sufficiently partisan to lose sight of the fact that a discharged man might be excused for taking the first place that might offer. “It was unprofessional, to say the least,” was his comment. “There was more to it than that, but we needn’t go into the contemptible whys and wherefores,” Grillage went on, with a portentous frown. “I let him out, and for a month or more we’ve been rocking along without a chief--and with a man against us who knows all the tricks of the trade. I’ve called you in to ask if you think you are big enough to swing the job and hold up our end of the pole. Grimsby says you are.” David Vallory gasped. It was a tremendous promotion for a young man less than four years out of college, and he was wise enough to discount his lack of experience. “I am only an apprentice, as you might say, Mr. Grillage, and many a man with my equipment, or more, is still carrying a transit,” he said, after a momentary pause for the breath-catching. “But I’m going to leave it with you. If you think I am equal to it, I can only say that I’ll do my level best not to disappoint you.” The big man’s laugh was like the creaking of a rusty door-hinge.