CHAPTER XIV.. "extra" Measurements. Toad-Stool Contractors, Testimonials.

"EXTRA" MEASUREMENTS. TOAD-STOOL CONTRACTORS, TESTIMONIALS.

"Have you managed to get a bit 'extra' out of measurements?"

"Yes, occasionally, but that game is about played out. In the good old times they used to let us all kinds of work, for we did business in company more then than we do now, and what one did not know the other did, and so we could do pretty nearly everything except metal work, so long as they supplied us with the materials.

"I have already named about the 'extra' depth of foundations in bridges, and pipes that were not so large as thought. I have also got a bit 'extra' from side ditching when they had taken no cross sections of the ground by leaving a few buoys or mounds at the highest parts. I have also had a trifle out of the cuttings by rounding off the slopes a few inches when they were long but working right to the slope peg at top and nicking in an inch or two at the foot of the slope; but the game is hardly worth the candle, as they have almost given up soiling the slopes. Then there was a chance both ways. You got more measurement than the actual excavation, and also a bit 'extra' for soiling that was not put in, but it does not run into enough money to make it pay safely, and as the slopes and formation are so much on show the fun is hardly worth the risk. There is more to be had, so far as earthworks are concerned, in road approaches than railway cuttings, and in docks than either."

"I think you are right there."

"You see the earthwork is not so much in patches in dockwork, but all together, and there is often as much in an acre or so of dock as in a whole railway four or five miles in length, and inches in dockwork are worth remembering. Besides they are not noticed so much, and the excavation is soon covered up; and if it is in clay, and found out, you can always say to the bosses--'I never saw such clay to swell in patches.' Be sure to say 'in patches' for then you have an excuse handy if the clay 'swells' nowhere else except at the place you have not excavated to the right depth. You can generally get the surface not exactly level throughout, and you have a large space to work on then, and every inch means sovereigns. Really I think it does no one any harm, and does good to me if the bottom is a trifle elevated. It comes rather easy to most of us to make ourselves think a thing is good and nice when it would cost us something to think otherwise."

"Yes. Money and our wishes usually work on the same main line."

"I once got done out of a bit 'extra' measurement by an engineer really lovely."

"Did you. How was that?"

"I don't mind telling you, but there will be squalls if you blab. It happened like this. It was a line that had been commenced and most of the easy work done. It was in the days when every jerry-builder and parish sewer contractor, and big linen-draper too, thought he was a railway and dock contractor. You know they borrowed a bit from a local bank, and would take any contract from a bridge of balloons to the moon to a tunnel through the earth to Australia. Channel Tunnels, Forth Bridges, and Panama Canals would have been toys to them, and they could have made them on their heads. They sprung up just like toad-stools--can't call them mushrooms, it would be a libel on the plants--and every one of them thought they were quite as good as Brassey, and could have given him points. They had cheek, that was all, just like quack doctors. Well, what with, so they told me, big local loan-mongers to work the oracle and swim with them, and general recommendations--which I never take much notice of unless I know what a man has seen or done--saying they were full of the sublimest honesty and wisdom as ever had been known, and were that clever as few indeed could hope to be, the game was worked trumps for a time. Tests, not general testimonials, is my motto. What you have done or seen done, not what people are kind enough to say they think you can do, and which they don't know you can do. The man that asks a chap that he is friendly with to write a recommendation has his sentimental feelings worked on, and then truth takes a back seat, and of course you are bound to say your friend is the best man that could be made for the place, just that and nothing else. It costs a chap nothing to write it, and it is only very few that care to refuse, because it does not do to tell a man whom you wish to be friendly with that you don't think much of him, and that he is quite sufficiently a shirker and polite humbug to suit a good many, or that your own private opinion is he is not far off being twin-brother to a mouse-coloured beast of burden that brays. It is not good form, so we all, from kindness I suppose, write pretty of one another except when we are owed money and can't get it, then adjectives are often necessary, and as strong as you can find, with a few put in as are only known to chaps like you and me, and are not taught in schools, although they learn a lot there as they should not. Do you know when I read general testimonials I always think what a lot of saints and Solomons there are wanting situations, and it must be only the sinners and fools as are in harness. What you want to know from a reliable source is, how did a chap get on upon any particular bit of work he had to do, and have it specified what it was, and in what position he was, and whether all was and is right. Therefore, if I asked for a testimonial I want one specially written for the occasion and with reference to the kind of work that is in hand, and not as if I was going to let a man walk out with my daughter. I name this because, between you and me, I've found when a man is praised up as a sort of saint, and nothing said as to what he has done in work that he is near to being either a humbug or an ass. That was just the case here, for it was to one of these toad-stool contractors that the directors let the first contract, and engineers who do not advise their directors to have nothing to do with such public works contractors (!) I think deserve all the trouble they get into. Surely it is better to have a contractor who knows what work is and should be, even if he has but a small capital, than one who knows next to nothing about construction, and is financed by some loan-monger, or is at the mercy of some wire-puller?"

"I say, you are hot on the question."

"Well, I consider it about poisons some works that would otherwise have been made all right, and would have paid well too at the original capital. Besides it ought to be known a man must be specially educated to properly execute large public works, and should be bred an engineer, for one that can make shanties, dust-bins and privies, may blossom into a jerry runner-up of two-story stucco villas that have the faces and insides covered with lime and mud and half-penny paper, but it wants a contractor that is just about an engineer to know how to properly carry out railways, docks, bridges, canals, harbours, and all sea works and similar undertakings, and not a bell-pull mender and drain maker, because then he hardly knows anything himself of what has to be done and he is at the mercy of others. He tenders at figures below what he ought, and then the work cannot be properly executed, or the easy portion is done somehow or other and then the man goes smash. It is just the difference between our sterling building firms and the jerry-shanty-raisers who ought not to be called builders. Well, this one started with a rattle and scraped about, and then went to splinters. That's why I have named it, and because on this railway there was a road diversion. About a quarter of it was excavated and it was in an awful mess. It was in gravelly sand, and taken out in dabs, and in and out, all widths and depths.

"I thought I saw a chance of a bit 'extra' and said nothing. One day I got rather fierce for 'extras,' and I sniffed out some small heaps at intervals up the approach. They were about a yard in height and four or five yards round. I felt sure they had not been put on the cross sections, which I got to know had been taken in some places as close as 15 feet apart, so I thought, 'Before I get the wagon roads in and move another heap, I will see the young guv'nor.'

"Well, I had to go to the office, and he knew of the heaps and said 'I will allow you 30 yards for those. I had not forgotten them.' Now that was what they were to a spadeful, so I thought it was good business as I knew they were not shown on the sections. He said 'In case anything should happen to you or me I will write what I mean and have it attached to the agreement.' I thought that was kind of him. Now, we had worked for about a week, and I was keen on plunder. He then dictated a few lines to the timekeeper, saying that it was agreed 30 cubic yards of earth were in the heaps and they were to be paid for as an allowance in addition to the 9239 cubic yards, the total measurement of the excavation I had to do under the contract. Of course it was worded right, but I give you the meaning. This I signed, and it was witnessed by the time-keeper and the young guv'nor. I made just about the same as he did of the total measurement, but was so eager after the 30 cubic yards in the heaps that I signed the paper off hand, but of course I knew then what was written, but thought no more about it. I left the office and had six of neat right off on the strength of those heaps. I will cut it short now.

"Well, I finished the job quickly, and one day, just before I had done, I thought to myself, 'There have not been any "extras" on this approach road, for what with slope and fence pegs being set out there has actually been no chance of a bit "extra."' After thinking I said to myself, 'It is an awkward place to measure. I will make my measurements so that they work out five hundred yards more, add a little all over, I can but give way in the end, have a nice, warm, genteel wrangle that will shake up the cockles of my heart, and I may get half or something extra if I do the oily persuasive trick, and look wronged in my countenance.' So up I went to the office and said, 'I shall about finish to-morrow, sir, and I think you will say I have done the job well and quickly, and deserve another. It has been a tight fit, and has only just kept me going.'

"Usual patter followed that is required on such occasions, and is kept in stock for them. I was beginning to feel real happy, and thinking I had got twenty pounds at least, and no mistake for talking pretty. So I said, 'As I am here, sir, do you mind telling me what you make the measurement?'"

"'Certainly. 9239 cubic yards, and 30 yards allowed for heaps. Total, 9269 cubic yards.'

"That did not suit me, so I started on the injured innocence lay, and said meekly and persuasive like, 'You have left out something, I think, sir.'

"'No; I have not.'

"'Well, sir, I make 500 yards more than you; and if I don't get it it will be very bad for me, for I shall not be able to pay my men.' That did not seem to flurry him. He opened the safe, and read from the paper I had signed some months ago. Blessed if it ever occurred to me to think that I had signed for the total quantities, but I had, for I was then so taken up with the 30 yards. Like you, I am old enough to know that no contract is indisputable, and that many things in law have to be tried before they are law when a question arises, and that there is not much finality about the show; but here I was caught, and had made my own net, and no mistake; so, after putting in all I knew and saying to him, 'I did not take that bit of paper to mean the same as he did,' I considered it best to shake down easy as I saw I was grassed, so I took his measurement; but I wished blue ruin to the heaps, and may where they were tipped be well worried by worms and vermin. Look out! I shall break something."

"Don't slap the table with your clenched fist like that, or we shall have to pay for damages, and have nothing left for drinks."

"Right you are; but it does make me wild to think of it."

"You were had at your own game there!"

"Yes; but after all said and done, except the ground is level throughout, I heard two engineers say earthwork measurements are generally a matter of fair averaging; and if tables are used, some like this table and others that, so all are happy; but they agreed cross-sections are the best, and unless a plaster cast is made of the surface of some ground, no one could say what the measurement really was to a few yards, and that it does not much matter as the price per cubic yard is so little compared with most prices of work, such as masonry, brickwork, concrete, &c."

"You have finished, I fancy?"

"Yes."

"Now I'll tell you how I once got a bit 'extra' from measurements in rather an odd way. The work was done without a contractor, it was principally let in pieces to sub-contractors, and the rest day-work; but I heard they did not gain much, if anything, by it. Came to nearly the same thing, and all the bother and risk themselves, and about the same good work.

"Well, the funny way I made some extra profit, of course, as usual, very much against my will, was this. I happened to be in the engineer's office, and heard the resident say to his assistant, 'Mr. ----, please make a list of timber required for the quay sheds, and take out the quantities.' Now it is only fair to say the assistant knew his book and was up to snuff, but we are all caught tripping sometimes, and whether it was his anxiety to ascertain the exact quantities, I don't know, but he got mixed, and blessed if the timber was not ordered net lengths, and nothing allowed for mortises and making joints. Just as we were going to start on the sheds they took us away, and before the foundations were excavated for the walls. It was fortunate they did, as it happened, for it afterwards occurred to the assistant that he had forgotten to allow for mortises and joints. So the sheds had to be made about a foot less width than they should have been, and we got paid for the foot or so at each end that was left out; and the inspector got the tip, I suppose, for nothing was said, and it was not noticed, for they were wide store sheds, with a line of rails through the centre, and it really did not matter at all. So you see I was forced to take a bit 'extra,' but that is the only time in the whole of my life. Of course it worried me much."

"No doubt it caused another wrinkle to set on your forehead."

"Very likely; but an old partner of mine told me he once was paid for the corners of a lot of level-crossing lodges twice over by taking the outside wall measurements all round instead of two outside and two inside, but only once, when things had to be done at a great rush; it was a case of hurry up all round, for all the final measurements of the whole line had to be done in a fortnight."