"You will be surprised to know, Mr. Smart," he said, consulting his
sheets, "that scrub-women are getting more here than they do in New
York City, and I am convinced that there are more scrub-women. Today
we had thirty new ones scrubbing the loggia on the gun-room floor, and
they all seem to have apprentices working under them. The carpenters
and plasterers were not so numerous to-day. I paid them off last night,
you see. It may interest you to hear that their wages for three days
amounted to nearly seven hundred dollars in our money, to say nothing
of materials--and breakage."

"Breakage?" I exclaimed in surprise.

"Yes, sir, breakage. They break nearly as much as they mend.
We'll--we'll go bankrupt, sir, if we're not careful."

I liked his pronoun. "Never mind," I said, "we'll soon be rid of them."

"They've got it in their heads, sir, that it will take at least a year
to finish the--"

"You tell the foremen that if this job isn't finished to our
satisfaction by the end of the month, I'll fire all of them," said I,
wrathfully.

"That's less than three weeks off, Mr. Smart. They don't seem to be
making much headway."

"Well, you _tell_ 'em, just the same." And that is how I dismissed it.
"Tell 'em _we've_ got to go to work ourselves."