THE SILVER FOX 121 



not understand the principle of jumping in 

 cold blood. 



He was not mistaken in the purport of 

 these things. Glasgow felt a pain about 

 his throat as he saw the old horse walk into 

 his stall again. He had not thought he 

 would have minded so much. He stood by 

 in the silence that characterizes horse-deal- 

 ing, while the chestnut underwent examin- 

 ation, and looked round the yard at the 

 miscellaneous collection of wreckage from 

 his railway contract — the broken pumping- 

 engine, the automatic crossing-gates that 

 would not work, the corrugated iron hut 

 that the men would not sleep in — and said 

 to himself that the luck had been against 

 him. It did not occur to him that he had 

 shouldered his competitors out of the 

 contract by a tender that left no margin for 

 mistakes. Mr. Glasgow never made mis- 

 takes, but he had based his brilliant and 

 minute calculations on the theory that the 

 cheap Irish labour would accomplish as 

 much in the day as the costly English, and 



