Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 15, 2025
Mawkum would often laugh whenever Garlicho's or Onativia's name was mentioned, and once in a while we would discuss the difficulties they must have encountered in the erection of the structure in the open sea.
When I remonstrate with Mawkum, insisting that such subterfuges are beneath the dignity of the office, he contends that they help business, and in proof quotes the old story of the unknown dentist who compelled a suffering prince to call the next day at noon, claiming that his list was full, when neither man, woman nor child had been in his chair for over a week fame and fortune being his ever after.
Mawkum gone, the little man it is inconceivable how small and withered he was; how yellow, how spidery in many of his motions, especially with his fingers stained with cigarettes, how punctilious, how polite, how soft and insinuating his voice, and how treacherous his smile a smile that smiled all alone by itself, while the cunning, glittering eyes recorded an entirely different brain suggestion Mawkum gone, I say, the little man examined the door to see that it was tight shut, glanced furtively about the room, resumed his seat, slowly opened the largest and most flaringly decorated envelope and produced a document signed with a name and titles that covered half the page.
And in a few minutes we three were seated at my desk with Mawkum unrolling plans, making sketches on a pad, figuring the cost of this and that and the other thing; I translating for Mawkum such statements as I thought he ought to know, thus restoring the discipline and dignity of the office it never being wise to have more than one head to a concern.
Only the arrival of a South American fresh from the Republic of Moccador, with a spade designed to dig up a long-buried treasure could have robbed Mawkum of his habitual caution of always guarding plans and estimates from outsiders a custom which was really one of the fundamental laws of the office.
And now, what, in your judgment, should be added for the cost of erection?" "Can't say," answered Mawkum; "don't know the coast or kind of labor, or the bottom of the reef may be coral, may be hard-pan, may be sand. Do YOU know?" "Yes the coast is an ugly one, except four months in the year.
"Better add another twenty thousand I want to be safe," he said, in a tone that showed me he had at last made up his mind. I added it, marking the sum on the memorandum which Mawkum had given him. "Now, please put that in writing over your signature. I'll call to-morrow at ten for the document. Good-day."
"This estimate is for the ironwork alone," the stranger said, "and is, as you see, good for three months. The time, as you will note, has expired. Do you now ask for an additional sum, or will the price stand?" All this in the tone of a Tombs lawyer cross-examining a witness. Mawkum murmured that, as there had been no advance in the cost of the raw material, the price would stand. "Very well.
Here Mawkum strolled into his room and began overhauling the contents of a rack of drawings piled one on top of the other like cordwood, labelled: "Screw Pile Structures." The next morning there came a timid knock at Mawkum's door the knock of a child with matches to sell, or of one of those dear sisters who collect for the poor.
When he was well down the corridor we waited really until we heard the down-chug of the elevator Mawkum looked at me and gave a low whistle. "Add another twenty! What do you think is up? That Bunch of Garlic is working some funny business, or he wouldn't have sent that brigand up here." I ruminated for a moment, walked to the window and took in the brick wall, the clerks and the clock tower.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking