Weber and Cressfield were each in charge of a contract, and my gang did the asphalt work for both of them, so that I worked part of the week for one and part of the week for the other. Cressfield asked me to put his brother on as a skilled tamperman at $2.25 per day, but after he had worked a few days I found that he was not skilled, and the other men would have kicked if I had paid him as a skilled tamperman. I told Cressfield that I could not keep him on as tamperman, but would keep him as a labourer, if he wished, at $1.75. Cressfield did not seem much put out, but told me I was too particular. He took his brother on his concrete gang, where, of course, he had nothing to do with me, though I had made an enemy of him, a fact I was made to feel in a hundred different ways. Weber, on the other hand, tried to help me in as many ways, even when I refused to join him in some of the schemes he was working. Mr. Arthur seemed to be the only man who really was absolutely square, and his principles were such as do not help a man in contracting business in the States. Some time before I came to the company the foreman of one of the street railway companies in the city had come to Mr. Arthur with a proposition to turn over to him the contract for all the company’s business for a term of two years if Arthur would give him $2000 as a bonus. Arthur replied that he had already put up a bid lower than any other company, and if he could not get the work by a fair bid he did not want it at all; and, furthermore, that he (Arthur) would report the conversation to the owners of the railway line. He did so, but the owners would not listen to him; they said that it was impossible: the man had been in their employ for a number of years, and they trusted him completely. Later on this man was found out and discharged, but through political pull he got the position of chief inspector of the Public Works Department. This occurred shortly after I went on to the street business. The first intimation I got was when we had a new inspector sent out to stay with my gang, and this man from the very first day proceeded to condemn our material, our work, me, and my men; we could do nothing right. I had a great friend in the Public Works Department, a member of my Order, and to him I went at once to see what it all meant. He told me, “You had better get out from under, as the word is out to kill Arthur (in a business sense), and we can only hit him through you fellows. There is nothing personal to you in this, but move while you can.” I could not of course repeat this to Arthur, but I went and told him that the inspector was most unreasonable, and asked him what I should do about it. He told me not to give way to the inspector, and that he would back me in anything reasonable.