While
he was puzzling over this message the engineers came in.
"Say, what do you make of this?" demanded Neale, and he shoved the
telegram across the table toward them.
Both men read it. Coffee threw his coat over on his cot and then lit
his pipe.
"What I make of this is--I lose three months' back pay ... nine
hundred dollars," he replied, puffing a cloud of smoke.
"And I lose six hundred," supplemented Blake.
Neale leaned back and gazed up at his subordinates. He felt a subtle
change in them. They had arrived at some momentous decision.
"But this message reads at my discretion," said Neale. "It's a plain
surprise to me. I've no intention of making you lose your back pay,
or of firing you, either."
"You'll probably do both--unless we can get together," asserted
Coffee.
"Well, can't we get together?"
"That remains to be seen," was the enigmatic reply.
"Ill need you both," went on Neale, thoughtfully. "We've a big job.
We've got to put a force of men on the piers while we're building
the trestle ... Maybe I'll fall down myself. Heavens! I've made
blunders myself. I can't condemn you fellows. I'm willing to call
off all talk about past performances and begin over again."
Neale felt that this proposition should have put another light on
the question, that it should have been received appreciatively if
not enthusiastically.
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