Harry Escombe | Page 2

next day."
"Two years!" ejaculated Mr Richards. "I did not think it had been so
long as that. But time flies when one is busy, and we have done a lot of
work during the last two years. Then you have only another year of
pupilage to serve, eh, Escombe?"
"Only one year more, Mr Richards," answered the lad.
"Ah!" commented Mr Richards, and paused again, characteristically.
"Look here, Escombe," he resumed; "you have done very well since
you came here; Sir Philip is very pleased with you, and so am I. I have
had my eye on you, and have seen that you have been studying hard
and doing your best to perfect yourself in all the details of your
profession. So far as theory goes you are pretty well advanced. What
you need now is practical, out-of-door work, and," laying his hand
upon the open atlas, "I have got a job here that I think will just suit you.
It is in Peru. Do you happen to know anything of Peru?"
Escombe confessed that his knowledge of Peru was strictly confined to
what he had learned about that interesting country at school.
"It is the same with me," admitted Mr Richards. "All I know about Peru
is that it is a very mountainous country, which is the reason, I suppose,
why there is considerably less than a thousand miles of railway
throughout the length and breadth of it. And what there is is made up
principally of short bits scattered about here and there. But there is
some talk of altering all that now, and matters have gone so far that Sir
Philip has been commissioned to prepare a scheme for constructing a
railway from a place called Palpa--which is already connected with
Lima and Callao--to Salinas, which is connected with Huacho, and
from Huacho to Cochamarca and thence to a place called Cerro de
Pasco, which in its turn is connected with Nanucaca; and from
Nanucaca along the shore of Lake Chinchaycocha to Ayacucho, Cuzco,
and Santa Rosa, which last is connected by rail with Mollendo, on the
coast. There is also another scheme afoot which will involve the taking

of a complete set of soundings over the length and breadth of Lake
Titicaca. Now, all this means a lot of very important and careful survey
work which I reckon will take the best part of two years to accomplish.
Sir Philip has decided to entrust the work to Mr Butler, who has already
done a great deal of survey work for him, as of course you know; but
Mr Butler will need an assistant, and Sir Philip, after consultation with
me, has decided to offer that post to you. It will be a splendid
opportunity for you to acquire experience in a branch of your
profession that you know very little of, as yet; and if the scheme should
be carried out, you, in consequence of the familiarity with the country
which you will have acquired, will stand an excellent chance of
obtaining a good post on the job. Now, what do you say, Escombe; are
you willing to go? Your pay during the survey will be a guinea a
day--seven days a week-- beginning on the day you sail from England
and ending on the day of your return; first-class passage out and home;
all expenses paid; twenty-five pounds allowed for a special outfit; and
everything in the shape of surveying instruments and other necessaries,
found. After your return you will of course be retained in the office to
work out the scheme, at a salary to be agreed upon, which will to a
great extent depend upon the way in which you work upon the survey;
while, in the event of the scheme being carried out, you will, as I say,
doubtless get a good post on the engineering staff, at a salary that will
certainly not be less than your pay during the survey, and may possibly
be a good deal more."
Young Escombe's heart leapt within him, for here was indeed a rosy
prospect suddenly opening out before him, a prospect which promised
to put an abrupt and permanent end to certain sordid embarrassments
that of late had been causing his poor widowed mother a vast amount
of anxiety and trouble, and sowing her beloved head with many
premature white hairs. For Harry's father had died about four months
before this story opens, leaving his affairs in a condition of such
hopeless disorder that the family lawyer had only just succeeded in
disentangling them, with the result that the widow had found herself
left almost penniless, with no apparent resource but to allow her
daughter Lucy to go out into a cold, unsympathetic world to earn her
own living and face the many