; certified check for five hundred dollars to accompany
each bid as guaranty, etc.
The news was a grateful surprise to the workingmen. The hauling
and placing of so large an amount of material as soon as spring
opened meant plenty of work for many shovelers and pickers. The
local politicians, of course, had known all about it for weeks;
especially those who owned property fronting on the streets to be
improved: they had helped the appropriation through the finance
committee. McGaw, too, had known about it from the first day of
its discussion before the board. Those who were inside the ring
had decided then that he would be the best man to haul the stone.
The "steal," they knew, could best be arranged in the tally of the
carts--the final check on the scow measurement. They knew that
McGaw's accounts could be controlled, and the total result easily
"fixed." The stone itself had been purchased of the manufacturers
the year before, but there were not funds enough to put it on the
roads at that time.
Here, then, was McGaw's chance. His triumph at obtaining the
brewery contract was but short-lived. Schwartz had given him the
work, but at Tom's price, not at his own. McGaw had accepted it,
hoping for profits that would help him with his chattel mortgage.
After he had been at work for a month, however, he found that he
ran behind.
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