PAGE 7
With Interest To Date
by
Mr. Wylie produced the cablegram, and Drummond scanned it sharply. Evidently the identification was complete.
“Does any one besides your son and yourself know the contents of this message?”
“Not a soul.”
“You have not told any one of my coming?”
“No, sir!”
“Very well.” Sir Thomas appeared to breathe easier; he deliberately tore the cablegram into small bits, then tossed the fragments into a wastepaper basket before waving his caller to a chair. He still remained very cold, very forceful, although his stiff formality had vanished.
“Do you understand all about this bridge?” he inquired.
Wylie senior took the cue of brusqueness and nodded shortly.
“Can you build it in the time specified?”
“With ease.”
“Have you submitted your bid?”
“Not yet. I–“
“What is the amount of your proposal?”
The president of the Atlantic Bridge Company gasped. This was the boldest, the coldest work he had ever experienced. Many times he had witnessed public officials like Sir Thomas Drummond approach this delicate point, but never with such composure, such matter-of-fact certainty and lack of moral scruple. Evidently, however, this Englishman had come to trade and wanted a direct answer. There was no false pose, no romance here. But Jackson Wylie, Sr., was too shrewd a business man to name a rock-bottom price to begin with. The training of a lifetime would not permit him to deny himself a liberal leeway for hedging, therefore he replied, cautiously:
“My figures will be approximately L1,400,000 sterling.” It was his longest speech thus far.
For what seemed an hour to the bridge-builder Sir Thomas Drummond gazed at him with a cold, hard eye, then he folded his papers, rolled up his blue-prints, placed them in the big traveling-bag, and carefully locked it. When he had finished he flung out this question suddenly:
“Does that include the Commissioners?”
Up to this point Mr. Jackson Wylie had spoken mainly in monosyllables; now he quit talking altogether; it was no longer necessary. He merely shook his head in negation. He was smiling slightly.
“Then I shall ask you to add L200,000 sterling to your price,” his lordship calmly announced. “Make your bid L1,600,000 sterling, and mail it in time for Wednesday’s boat. I sail on the same ship. Proposals will be opened on the twenty-fifth. Arrange for an English indemnity bond for ten per cent. of your proposition. Do not communicate in any manner whatsoever with your son, except to forward the sealed bid to him. He is not to know of our arrangement. You will meet me in London later; we will take care of that L200,000 out of the last forty per cent. of the contract price, which is payable thirty days after completion, inspection, and acceptance of the bridge. You will not consult your associates upon leaving here. Do I make myself clear? Very well, sir. The figures are easy to remember: L1,600,000; L1,400,000 to you. I am pleased with the facilities your plant offers for doing the work. I am confident you can complete the bridge on time, and I beg leave to wish you a very pleasant good day.”
Jackson Wylie, Sr., did not really come to until he had reached the street; even then he did not know whether he had come down the elevator or through the mail-chute. Of one thing only was he certain: he was due to retire in favor of his son. He told himself that he needed a trip through the Holy Land with a guardian and a nursing-bottle; then he paused on the curb and stamped on his corn for a second time.
“Oh, what an idiot I am!” he cried, savagely. “I could have gotten L1,600,000 to start with, but–by gad, Sir Thomas is the coldest-blooded thing I ever went against! I–I can’t help but admire him.”
Having shown a deplorable lack of foresight, Mr. Wylie determined to make up for it by an ample display of hindsight. If the profits on the job were not to be so large as they might have been, he would at least make certain of them by obeying instructions to the letter. In accordance with this determination, he made out the bid himself, and he mailed it with his own hand that very afternoon. He put three blue stamps on the envelope, although it required but two. Then he called up an automobile agency and ordered a foreign town-car his wife had admired. He decided that she and the girls might go to Paris for the fall shopping–he might even go with them, in view of that morning’s episode.