Adventures in Many Lands, page 59 by Various Authors
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. "Summary justice, you know. They're a rough lot. Now come and see the office and the plans."
Whatever Garstin may have thought of these proceedings, he said nothing, but followed submissively along the wharf. Perhaps, without knowing the peculiar authority which had at the contractor's desire been vested in Trevannion, he wondered that any engineer should wield such powers. However, he had not much time for wondering, or indeed for anything except the task of keeping pace with his nimble, long-legged comrade. He kept stumbling over little heaps of granite and sand, over rails, along which the travelling cranes moved ponderously, over bits of tarpaulin and old iron instruments, over every object, in fact, that Trevannion avoided with such apparent ease.
Garstin was rather a distressful youth by the time the shanty was reached, for the pace had been hot, and he had been impeded by the fatal greatcoat and muffler. After divesting himself of these he stood still and breathed hard in front of a cheerful coke fire, while Trevannion unrolled the plans and pinned them to the long, sloping desk occupying one side of the room.
When all was ready the engineer began to explain the plans in detail, elaborating the explanation with simpler explanation, getting through the sections one by one with slow precision, repeating his elucidation of black lines, red lines, and green lines, of the length, breadth, and numbers of the piles, of the soil, subsoil, and sub-subsoil, that received them; all this in the manner of one who is instructing a child in the rudiments of engineering science, for he had made up his mind that Garstin would want a lot of instructing.
Garstin seemed a patient listener, and Trevannion had almost begun to enjoy himself, when the former suddenly laid his finger on a certain spot and asked a question connected with water-pressure and the strength of resisting force. Trevannion was surprised into returning what he thought was the correct answer. He was still more surprised when th