CHAPTER XXI

DICK MAKES A BOLD VENTURE

Some delicate and important work was being done, and Stuyvesant had had his lunch sent up to the dam. Bethune and Dick joined him afterwards, and sat in the shade of a big traveling crane. Stuyvesant and Dick were hot and dirty, for it was not their custom to be content with giving orders when urgent work was going on. Bethune looked languid and immaculately neat. His speciality was mathematics, and he said he did not see why the man with mental talents should dissipate his energy by using his hands.

"It's curious about that French liner," Stuyvesant presently remarked. "I understand her passengers have been waiting since yesterday and she hasn't arrived."

"The last boat cut out Santa Brigida without notice," Bethune replied. "My opinion of the French is that they're a pretty casual lot."

"On the surface. They smile and shrug where we set our teeth, but when you get down to bed-rock you don't find much difference. I thought as you do, until I went over there and saw a people that run us close for steady, intensive industry. Their small cultivators are simply great. I'd like to put them on our poorer land in the Middle West, where we're content with sixteen bushels of wheat that's most fit for chicken feed to the acre. Then what they don't know about civil engineering isn't worth learning."

Bethune made a gesture of agreement. "They're certainly fine engineers and they're putting up a pretty good fight just now, but these Latins puzzle me. Take the Iberian branch of the race, for example. We have Spanish peons here who'll stand for as much work and hardship as any Anglo-Saxon I've met. Then an educated Spaniard's hard to beat for intellectual subtlety. Chess is a game that's suited to my turn of mind, but I've been badly whipped in Santa Brigida. They've brains and application, and yet they don't progress. What's the matter with them, anyway?"

1. What was Bethune's specialty?
2. Who had his lunch sent to the dam?
3. Who joined him afterwards?
4. Who was dirty?
5. Who was not dirty?
6. Had he been working with his hands?
7. Did he want to work with his hands?
8. Was the boat they mentioned late?
9. How long were people waiting for it?
10. What nationality was in charge of that boat?
11. What does Bethune think of them?
12. Did the person who replied to Bethune agree?
13. Did they used to agree?

Provide a numbered list of answers.
1. mathematics
2. Stuyvesant
3. Bethune and Dick
4. Stuyvesant and Dick
5. Bethune
6. No
7. No
8. Yes
9. since yesterday
10. French
11. they're a pretty casual lot
12. No
13. yes