could do so, but to his direct question was obliged to admit that I
had never had any experience. He seemed sorry; he wanted someone to
take charge of a survey, but he said he could hardly employ me for
that purpose, seeing I had had no practice. I think, had I possessed
a theodolite, and all the other paraphanalia, I could have got him
to take me on trial, but of course it was no use spending a lot of
money on instruments that I might never want, just for the chance.
This is the only time I have come near getting a job yet. It was
riling to miss it, but I don't see how it could have been otherwise.
What would you have done? I am rather at a loss to know what to do
now. I seem to have pretty well dried up Montreal, and don't see
much use sticking here for another week, and yet the man whom I have
got to see at 9 a.m. to-morrow, may recommend me to half-a-dozen
different places, and those again may give rise to another
half-a-dozen. What's the use of writing it all down any way? I am
sitting on a very low chair at a very high table, consequently my
left arm feels as though it was restraining an apparent tendency on
the part of the table to set at nought the established laws of
gravity. How is the old Tadpole, the wily banker, the impecunious
toiler among heaps of gold? Tell him to prig a few thousand pound
notes, and wrap himself up in them all but his head, that will do
for the port light, and labelled "wrong side up, with care," and get
himself sent across here, then I shall have nothing to do but to
chaw baccy, and wait till he comes out of jail. Have you seen my
particular friend the "Dook" lately? How's he a-getting on? And
what's he doing? And what does he want to do? which is just the
difference between great expectations and little realities.
By-the-bye, did you ever hear of a single ladder bucket dredger for
a depth of thirty-five feet to dredge 1,200 tons an hour? The
buckets are 1 cwt. 7st. capacity, and travel up at the rate of 125