would be able to read the prices contained
in those sealed bids as plainly as if they lay open before him. But
his time had narrowed now to hours.

He lunched with John Pitts, the head draughtsman, going back to pick
up the boomerang he had left the week before.

"Have you gone over my first bid?" he asked, carelessly.

"I have--lucky for you," said Pitts. "You made a mistake."

"Indeed! How so?"

"Why, it's thirty per cent. too low. It would be a crime to give you
the business at those figures."

"But, you see, I didn't include the sub-structure. I didn't have time
to figure that." Mitchell prayed that his face might not show his
eagerness. Evidently it did not, for Pitts walked into the trap.

"Even so," said he; "it's thirty per cent. out of the way. I made
allowance for that."

The boomerang had finished its flight!

Once they had separated, Mitchell broke for his hotel like a
hunted man. He had made no mistake in his first figures. The great
Krugersdorpf job was his; but, nevertheless, he wished to make himself
absolutely sure and to secure as much profit as possible for Comer
& Mathison. Without a handsome profit this three-million-dollar job
might ruin a firm of their standing.

In order to verify Pitts's statement, in order to swell his proposed
profits to the utmost, Mitchell knew he ought to learn the "overhead"
in English mills; that is, the fixed charges which, added to shop
costs and prices of material, are set aside to cover office expenses,
cost of operation, and contingencies. Without this information
he would have to go it blind, after a fashion, and thereby risk
penalizing himself; with it he could estimate very closely the amounts
of the other bids and insure a safe margin for Comer & Mathison. In
addition to this precaution he wished to have his own figures checked
up, for even under normal conditions, if one makes a numerical error
in work of this sort, he is more than apt to repeat it time and again,
and Mitchell knew himself to be deadly tired--almost on the verge
of collapse. He was inclined to doze off whenever he sat down; the
raucous noises of the city no longer jarred or startled him, and his
surroundings were becoming unreal, grotesque, as if seen through the
spell of absinthe. Yes, it was necessary to check off his figures.

But who could he get to do the work? He could not go to Threadneedle
Street. He thought of the Carnegie representative and telephoned him,
explaining the