Page:Stanwood Pier--The ancient grudge.djvu/210

Rh vision to his own carefully finished plans, and to that as well as to the other demands on him may be attributed the indifference and negligence which marked his attitude toward the work. In the first place, though the site chosen was on the edge of a marsh, he neglected to take borings; in the second place, the measurements for the granite foundation and limestone superstructure which he made personally while his draughtsman was enjoying a vacation were discovered, after the foundation had been laid, not to agree, and there was a long and vexatious delay. When at last, six months late, the club-house was finished, it did not long retain the first favorable opinions that it won; in the spring, when the frost was out of the ground, it began to settle and crack and leak amazingly. Cracks appeared in the plaster, the rain came through the roof, and in the reading-room the paneling swelled, the mantel-pieces started away from their fireplaces, the doors refused to close. Stewart blamed the contractor, but the contractor inculpated Stewart, who had to make the humiliating confession that he had not thought it necessary to take borings and that if he had done so he might possibly have prevented such a settling of the building. To Floyd, who had been anxious to have this one thing done especially well, the result was a great disappointment; he felt that somehow he had failed in a labor of love, and in his loyalty to a friend it was even more painful since he could not exonerate Stewart. "I suppose," he said to himself when he had at last attained a cooler temper, "everybody sometimes makes a botch—even the best of men. Every now and then a crack painter does a daub, and a good man writes a poor book, and a real humorist gets cheap, and a great statesman flies off the handle. But I wish it had been something else than just this that had been Stewart's off job."

Although Floyd did not yet know it, Stewart was having a good many "off jobs" at about this time. Up till now he had been prospering in his work; a few blunders