and not desiring it to worry about you, it will take a fancy into its head
to come along and bother.

"It's always the way!" muttered Dave to his mates. "I knew the beggar
would turn up! . . . And the only cronk log we've had, too!" he added,
in an injured tone. "If this had 'a' been the only blessed iron-bark
in the whole contract, it would have been all right. . . .
Good-day, sir!" (to the inspector). "It's hot?"

The inspector nodded. He was not of an impulsive nature.
He got down from his horse and looked at the girder in an abstracted way;
and presently there came into his eyes a dreamy, far-away,
sad sort of expression, as if there had been a very sad and painful occurrence
in his family, way back in the past, and that piece of timber
in some way reminded him of it and brought the old sorrow home to him.
He blinked three times, and asked, in a subdued tone:

"Is that iron-bark?"

Jack Bentley, the fluent liar of the party, caught his breath with a jerk
and coughed, to cover the gasp and gain time. "I--iron-bark?
Of course it is! I thought you would know iron-bark, mister."
(Mister was silent.) "What else d'yer think it is?"

The dreamy, abstracted expression was back. The inspector, by-the-way,
didn't know much about timber, but he had a great deal of instinct,
and went by it when in doubt.

"L--look here, mister!" put in Dave Regan, in a tone of innocent puzzlement
and with a blank bucolic face. "B--but don't the plans and specifications