"He hoped you weren't just going to put down a concrete floor and then shut the place up."
Mr. Selingman's amiable imperturbability was for once disturbed.
"What did the fellow mean?" he enquired.
"Haven't an idea," Norgate replied, "but he made me stand on a pile of bricks and look at a strip of land which some one else had bought upon a hill close by. I suppose they want the factories built as quickly as possible, and work-people around the place."
"I shall have two hundred men at work to-morrow morning," Selingman remarked. "If that agent had not been a very ignorant person, he would have known that a concrete floor is a necessity to any factory where heavy machinery is used."
"Is it?" Norgate asked simply.
"Any other question?" Selingman demanded.
"None at all."
"Then we will go and play bridge."
They cut into the same rubber. Selingman, however, was not at first entirely himself. He played his cards in silence, and he once very nearly revoked. Mrs. Benedek took him to task.