Four months passed. The ice was out of the river; the steam heat had
been turned off in the high building and the two time-worn awnings had
been fixed to my windows by the obliging janitor. The Tampico had come
and gone, and had come again. Its arrivals, and departures were, as
usual, always commented upon by Mawkum, generally in connection with
"That Bunch of Dried Garlic," that being the irreverent way in which he
spoke of his ivory-tinted Excellency. Otherwise the lighthouse, and all
that pertained to it, had become ancient history.
One lovely spring morning--one of those warm mornings when every window
and door is wide open to get the breeze from Sandy Hook and
beyond--another visitor stepped into Mawkum's room. He brought no
letters of introduction, nor did he confine himself to his mother
tongue, although his nationality was as apparent as that of his
predecessor. Neither did he possess a trace of Garlicho's affability or
polish. On the contrary, he conducted himself like a muleteer, and
spoke with the same sort of brutal authority.
And the differences did not stop here. Garlicho was shrivelled and
sun-dried. This man was round and plump--plump as a stuffed olive
fished from a jar of oil, and as shiny; dark-skinned, with a pair of
heavy eyebrows that met over a stub of a nose ending in a knob; two
keen rat eyes, a mouth hidden by a lump of a mustache black as tar, and
a sagging, flabby chin which slunk into his collar. Next came a
shirt-front soiled and crumpled, and then the rest of him in a suit of
bombazine.
"You designed a lighthouse some months ago for Mr. Garlicho, of San
Juan," he blurted out with hardly an accent. "I arrived this morning by
the Tampico. My name is Carlos Onativia." And he laid a thin, elongated
piece of cardboard on Mawkum's desk.
Only the arrival of a South American fresh from the Republic of
Moccador, with a spade designed to dig up a long-buried treasure could
have robbed Mawkum of his habitual caution of always guarding plans and
estimates from outsiders--a custom which was really one of the
fundamental laws of the office. The indiscretion was no doubt helped by
the discovery that the owner of the spade spoke English, a fact which
freed him at once of all dependence on the superior lingual attainments
possessed by the Grandioso in the adjoining room.
Down came the duplicate blue-prints without a word of protest or any
further inquiry, and before I could reach the inquirer's side and be
properly introduced--I did not want to interfere too abruptly--Mawkum
had not only unrolled the elevation and cross-sections, but had handed
out a memorandum showing the estimate of cost.
Onativia acknowledged my presence with a slight bob of his head,
loosened the upper button of his coat, fished up a pair of glasses,
stuck them on the knob end of his nose, and began devouring the plans
in a way that showed both of us that it was not the first time he had
looked over a set of blue-prints.
"This estimate is for the ironwork alone," the stranger said, "and is,
as you see, good for three months. The time, as you will note, has
expired. Do you now ask for an additional sum, or will the price
stand?" All this in the tone of a Tombs lawyer cross-examining a
witness.
Mawkum murmured that, as there had been no advance in the cost of the
raw material, the price would stand.
"Very well. And now, what, in your judgment, should be added for the
cost of erection?"
"Can't say," answered Mawkum; "don't know the coast or kind of labor,
or the bottom of the reef--may be coral, may be hard-pan, may be sand.
Do YOU know?"
"Yes--the coast is an ugly one, except four months in the year. Site is
twelve miles from San Juan, exposed to the rake of the sea; bottom
coral, I understand; labor cheap and good for nothing, and appliances
none--except what can be shipped from here." This came with the air of
one who knew.