Calumet K | Page 8

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 tomorrow."
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,