"Well," said Cotterill, "that's the point. I've got a brother a builder in Toronto, you know. He's doing very well; building is building over there. I wrote to him a bit since, and he replied by the next mail—by the next mail—that what he wanted was just a man like me to overlook things. He's getting an old man now, is John. So, you see, there's an opening waiting for me."
As if to say, "The righteous are never forsaken."
"I tell you all this as you're a friend of the family like," he added.
Then, after an expanse of vagueness, he began hopefully, cheerfully, undauntedly:
"Even now if I could get hold of a couple of thousand I could pull through handsome—and there's plenty of security for it."
"Bit late now, isn't it?"
"Not it. If only some one who really knows the town, and has faith in the property market, would come down with a couple of thousand—well, he might double it in five years."
"Really!"
"Yes," said Cotterill. "Look at Clare Street."
Clare Street was one of his terra-cotta masterpieces.