“Think I’d take that medicine,” explained Paddy, hastily.  “Not much.  Don’t I know that the only cure for the bends is bein’ put back in the ‘air’ in the medical lock, same as they did with you, and bein’ brought out slowly?  That’s the cure, that, an’ grit, an’ patience, an’ time.  Mark me wurds, gintlemen, he’ll finish that tunnel an’ beggin’ yer pardon, Mr. Orton, marry that gurl, too.  Didn’t I see her with tears in her eyes right in this room when he wasn’t lookin’, and a smile when he was?  Sure, ye’ll be all right,” continued Paddy, slapping his side and thigh.  “We all get the bends more or less—­all us sand-hogs.  I was that doubled up meself that I felt like a big jack-knife.  Had it in the arm, the side, and the leg all at once, that time he was just speakin’ of.  He’ll be all right in a couple more weeks, sure, an’ down in the air again, too, with the rest of his men.  It’s somethin’ else he has on his moind.”

“Then the case has nothing to do with your trouble, nothing to do with the bends?” asked Kennedy, keenly showing his anxiety to help our old friend.

“Well, it may and it may not,” replied Orton thoughtfully.  “I begin to think it has.  We have had a great many cases of the bends among the men, and lots of the poor fellows have died, too.  You know, of course, how the newspapers are roasting us.  We are being called inhuman; they are going to investigate us; perhaps indict me.  Oh, it’s an awful mess; and now some one is trying to make Taylor believe it is my fault.

“Of course,” he continued, “we are working under a high air-pressure just now, some days as high as forty pounds.  You see, we have struck the very worst part of the job, a stretch of quicksand in the river-bed, and if we can get through this we’ll strike pebbles and rock pretty soon, and then we’ll be all right again.”

He paused.  Paddy quietly put in:  “Beggin’ yer pardon again, Mr. Orton, but we had intirely too many cases of the bends even when we were wurkin’ at low pressure, in the rock, before we sthruck this sand.  There’s somethin’ wrong, sir, or ye wouldn’t be here yerself like this.  The bends don’t sthrike the ingineers, them as don’t do the hard work, sir, and is careful, as ye know—­not often.”

“It’s this way, Craig,” resumed Orton.  “When I took this contract for the Five-Borough Transit Company, they agreed to pay me liberally for it, with a big bonus if I finished ahead of time, and a big penalty if I exceeded the time.  You may or may not know it, but there is some doubt about the validity of their franchise after a certain date, provided the tunnel is not ready for operation.  Well, to make a long story short, you know there are rival companies that would like to see the work fail and the franchise revert to the city, or at least get tied up in the courts.  I took it with the understanding that it was every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost.”

“Have you yourself seen any evidences of rival influences hindering the work?” asked Kennedy.