At this time the woods work increasingly demanded his attention. He
disappeared for a week, his organising abilities claimed for the
distribution of the road crews. When he returned to the office,
Newmark, with an air of small triumph, showed him contracts for the
construction of three new vessels.
"I get them for $55,000," said he, "with $30,000 of it on long
time."
"Without consulting me!" cried Orde.
Newmark explained carefully that the action, seemingly so abrupt,
had really been taking advantage of a lucky opportunity.
"Otherwise," he finished, "we shouldn't have been able to get the
job done for another year, at least. If that big Cronin contract
goes through--well, you know what that would mean in the shipyards--
nobody would get even a look-in. And McLeod is willing, in the
meantime, to give us a price to keep his men busy. So you see I had
to close at once. You can see what a short chance it was."
"It's a good chance, all right," admitted Orde; "but--why--that is,
I thought perhaps we'd job our own freighting for awhile--it never
occurred to me we'd build any more vessels until we'd recovered a
little."
"Recovered," Newmark repeated coldly. "I don't see what 'recovered'
has to do with it.
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