The two brothers held another discussion on this matter later that night, on the stairs, as they were on their way to their rooms.
“Won’t you come to this meeting to-morrow, Julius?” asked Raymond.
“I don’t see that I should be of any use, unless—”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you would make what seems to me the right proposal, and I could be any support in it.”
“What’s that?”
“To use the insurance to put up the mere shells and plain indispensable fittings of the church and town-hall, then make the drainage of Water Lane and Hall Street the first object for the rates, while the church is done by subscription and voluntary effort.”
“You put the drainage first—even before the church?” said Raymond, smiling, with an elder brother’s satisfaction in such an amount of common sense.
“Of course I do,” said Julius. “An altar and four walls and chairs are all that ought to be sought for. Little good can be done to people’s souls while their bodies are in the feverish discomfort of foul air and water. This is an opportunity not to be wasted, while all the houses are down, town-hall and all.”
“The very thing I told Briggs and the others this morning,” said Raymond; “but I could not get a hearing; they said there never had been any illness worth mentioning, and in fact scouted the whole matter, as people always do.”