n which he had been
addressed, and then turned and smiled grimly upon the expectant group
of engineers. He kept them waiting for some short space, while he
looked them over carefully, as though he had never seen them before.

"Well, gentlemen," he said, "I'm glad to have you here all together. I
am only sorry you didn't come in time to hear what this fellow has had
to say. I don't as a rule listen that long to complaints, but he told
me what I have seen for myself and what has been told me by others. I
have been here three days now, and I assure you, gentlemen, that my
easiest course would be to pack up my things and go home on the next
steamer. I was sent down here to take charge of a mine in active
operation, and I find--what? I find that in six months you have done
almost nothing, and that the little you have condescended to do has
been done so badly that it will have to be done over again; that you
have not only wasted a half year of time--and I can't tell how much
money--but that you have succeeded in antagonizing all the people on
whose good-will we are absolutely dependent; you have allowed your
machinery to rust in the rain, and your workmen to rot with sickness.
You have not only done nothing, but you haven't a blue print to show me
what you meant to do. I have never in my life come across laziness and
mismanagement and incompetency upon such a magnificent and reckless
scale. You have not built the pier, you have not opened the freight
road, you have not taken out an ounce of ore. You know more of
Valencia than you know of these mines; you know it from the Alameda to
the Canal. You can tell me what night the band plays in the Plaza, but
you can't give me the elevation of one of these hills. You have spent
your days on the pavements in front of cafes, and your nights in
dance-halls, and you have been drawing salaries every month. I've more
respect for these half-breeds that you've allowed to starve in this
fever-bed than I have for you. You have treated them worse than they'd
treat a dog, and if any of them die, it's on your heads. You have put
them in a fever-camp which you have not even taken the trouble to
drain. Your commissariat is rotten, and you have let them drink all
the rum they wanted. There is not one of you--"

The group of silent men broke, and one of them stepped forward and
shook his forefinger at Clay.

"No man can talk to me like that," he said, warningly, "and think I'll
wor