suring him that he
had, to use his own words, "a dead sure thing on the award." When the
bids were opened, Mawkum congratulated him on his foresight and offered
to attend the funeral in a body, the client's bid being some thirty per
cent too high. Little episodes like this add a touch of gayety to the
hours spent in the top of the high building.

Mawkum's yawn over--it is generally in three sections, but can
sometimes be curtailed--I interrupted hurriedly with:

"What sort of a structure is it?" I knew, but I wanted some other
employment for his mouth.

"First order, screw pile, about a hundred and twenty feet high, stuck
on a coral reef at the mouth of the harbor. 'Bout like our Fowey Rocks,
off the Florida coast. She's backing in." His eyes were still on the
Tampico, the floes of North River ice hemming her in on all sides.
"Passengers'll be off in an hour. Wonder how they like our
climate--little chilly for pajamas."

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. At a second summons, a little louder than the
first, the chief, with an impatient air, slid from the high stool
facing his drawing board, and threw wide the door.

I craned my head and discovered a small, ivory-tinted individual in a
Panama hat, duck trousers and patent-leather shoes. Wrapped about his
shrivelled frame, one red-lined end tossed gallantly over his shoulder,
was an enormous Spanish capa. This hid every part of his body from his
chin to the knees of his cotton ducks. From where I sat he looked like
a conspirator in the play, or the assassin who lies in wait up the dark
alley. Once inside he wrinkled his shoulders with the shivering
movement of a horse dislocating a fly, dropped the red-lined end of the
capa, removed his Panama and began a series of genuflections which
showed me at once that he had been born among a people who imbibed
courtesy with their mother's, or their cocoanut's, milk.

"I am look' for the Grandioso Engineer," said the visitor. "I am Senor
Garlicho--" Then a shade of uncertainty crossed his face: Mawkum was
still staring at him. "It is a mistake then, perhaps? I have a letter
from Senor Law-TON. Is it not to the great designer of lig