Читать книгу The Green Archer онлайн

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"That's a fair description of you," said Syme, addressing himself to his work.

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The rattle and clang of steel against steel, the staccato drumming of electric rivetters, the muffled pandemonium of hammer and mallet. All these were music to the ears of Abel Bellamy.

He stood by the window of his sitting-room, his hands clasped behind him, his gaze fixed upon such a scene as he could watch for hours. Opposite to his hotel a big building was in course of erection. The steel skeleton of it towered above the puny houses that flanked each side.

Below in the street a small crowd of people had gathered to watch, open-mouthed, a girder going skyward at the end of a spider thread of cable. Higher and higher the big derrick lifted the steel that swung with majestic slowness. Abe Bellamy grunted his disapproval. The girder was badly balanced. He knew to the fraction of an inch just where it should have been fixed.

If the evil deeds of men were, as the ancients believed, written in letters of blood in the place of their perpetration, the name of Abel Bellamy would be splashed red in many places.