Peterson. "I generally use cold water. The folks here ain't very obliging. Kind o' poor, you know."
Bannon was rummaging in his grip for his shaving kit.
"You never saw a razor like that, Pete," he said. "Just heft it once."
"Light, ain't it," said Peterson, taking it in his hand.
"You bet it's light. And look here"—he reached for it and drew it back and forth over the palm of his hand—"that's the only stropping I ever give it."
"Don't you have to hone it?"
"No, sir; it's never been touched to a stone or leather. You just get up and try it once. Those whiskers of yours won't look any the worse for a chopping."
Peterson laughed, and lathered his face, while Bannon put an edge on the razor, testing it with a hair.
"Say, that's about the best yet," said Peterson, after the first stroke.
"You're right it is."
Bannon looked on for a few minutes, then he took a railroad "Pathfinder" from his grip and rapidly turned the pages. Peterson saw it in the mirror, and asked, between strokes:—
"What are you going to do?"
"Looking up trains."
While Peterson was splashing in the washbowl, Bannon took his turn at the mirror.
"How's the Duluth job getting on?" asked Peterson, when Bannon had finished, and was wiping his razor.
"All right—'most done. Just a little millwright work left, and some cleaning up."
"There ain't any marine leg on the house, is there?"
"No."
"How big a house is it?"
"Eight hundred thousand bushels."
"That so? Ain't half as big as this one, is it?"
"Guess not. Built for the same people, though, Page & Company."
"They must be going in pretty heavy."
"They are. There's a good deal of talk about it. Some of the boys up at the office say there's going to be fun with December wheat before they get through with it. It's been going up pretty steadily since the end of September—it was seventy-four and three-eighths Saturday in Minneapolis. It ain't got up quite so high down here yet, but the boys say there's going to be a lot of money in it for somebody."
"Be a kind of a good thing to get in on, eh?" said Peterson, cautiously.
"Maybe, for those that like to put money in wheat. I've got no money for that sort of thing myself."
"Yes, of course," was Peterson's quick reply. "A fellow doesn't want to run them kind o' chances. I don't believe in it myself."
"The fact's this—and this is just between you and me, mind you; I don't know anything about it, it's only what I think—somebody's buying a lot of December wheat, or the price wouldn't keep going up. And I've got a notion that, whoever he is, it's Page & Company that's selling it to him. That's just putting two and two together, you see. It's the real grain that the Pages handle, and if they sell to a man it means that they're going to make a mighty good try at unloading it on him and making him pay for it. That's all I know about it. I see the Pages selling—or what looks mighty like it—and I see them beginning to look around and talk on the quiet about crowding things a little on their new houses, and it just strikes me that there's likely to be a devil of a lot of wheat coming into Chicago before the year runs out; and if that's so, why, there's got to be a place to put it when it gets here."
"Do they have to have an elevator to put it in?" asked Peterson. "Can't they deliver it in the cars? I don't know much about that side of the business."
"I should say not. The Board of Trade won't recognize grain as delivered until it has been inspected and stored in a registered house."
"When would the house have to be ready?"
"Well, if I'm right, if they're going to put December wheat in this house, they'll have to have it in before the last day of December."
"We couldn't do that," said Peterson, "if the cribbing was here."
Bannon, who had stretched out on the bed, swung his feet around and sat up. The situation was not easy, but he had been sent to Calumet to get the work done in time, and he meant to do it.
"Now, about this cribbing, Pete," he said; "we've got to have it before we can touch the annex?"
"I guess that's about it," Peterson replied.
"I've been figuring a little on this bill. I take it there's something over two million feet altogether. Is that right?"
"It's something like that. Couldn't say exactly. Max takes care of the lumber."
Bannon's brows came together.
"You ought to know a little more about this yourself, Pete. You're the man that's building the house."
"I guess I've been pushing it along as well as any one could," said Peterson, sullenly.
"That's all right. I ain't hitting at you. I'm talking business, that's all. Now, if Vogel's right, this cribbing ought to have been here fourteen days ago—fourteen days to-morrow."
Peterson nodded.
"That's just two weeks of lost time. How've you been planning to make that up?"
"Why—why—I reckon I can put things together soon's I get the cribbing."
"Look here, Pete. The office has contracted to get this house done by a certain date. They've got to pay $750 for every day that we run over that date. There's no getting out of that, cribbing or no cribbing. When they're seeing ten or twenty thousand dollars slipping out of their hands, do you think they're going to thank you for telling 'em that the G. & M. railroad couldn't get cars? They don't care what's the matter—all they want of you is to do the work on time."
"Now, look here, Charlie——"
"Hold on, Pete. Don't get mad. It's facts, that's all. Here's these two weeks gone. You see that, all right enough. Now, the way this work's laid out, a man's got to make every day count right from the start if he wants to land on his feet when the house is done. Maybe you think somebody up in the sky is going to hand you down a present of two extra weeks so the lost time won't count. That would be all right, only it ain't very likely to happen."
"Well," said Peterson, "what are you getting at? What do you want me to do? Perhaps you think it's easy."
"No, I don't. But I'll tell you what to do. In the first place you want to quit this getting out on the job and doing a laborer's work. The office is paying out good money to the men that should do that. You know how to lay a corbel, but just now you couldn't tell me how much cribbing was coming. You're paid to direct this whole job and to know all about it, not to lay corbels. If you put in half a day swinging a sledge out there on the spouting house, how're you going to know that the lumber bills tally, and the carpenters ain't making mistakes, and that the timber's piled right. Here to-day you had a dozen men throwing away their time moving a lot of timber that ought to have been put in the right place when it first came in."
Peterson was silent.
"Now to-morrow, Pete, as soon as you've got the work moving along, you'd better go over to the electric light company and see about having the whole ground wired for arc lamps, so we can be ready to put on a night shift the minute the cribbing comes in. You want to crowd 'em, too. They ought to have it ready in two days."
Bannon sat for a moment, then he arose and looked at his watch.
"I'm going to leave you, Pete," he said, as he put on his collar.
"Where're you going?"
"I've got to get up to the city to make the ten o'clock train. I'm going up to Ledyard to get the cribbing.