"If it's within a mile that will do," George said. "It doesn't matter about our going home in the breakfast time. We can bring our grub in a basket and our tea in a bottle, as several of the hands do; but if it's over a mile we shall have to hurry to get there and back for dinner. Still there are plenty of houses in a mile."
There were indeed plenty of houses, in long regular rows, bare and hard-looking, but George wanted to find something more pleasant and homelike than these. Late in the afternoon he came upon what he wanted. It was just about a mile from the works and beyond the lines of regular streets. Here he found a turning off the main road with but eight houses in it, four on each side. It looked as if the man who built them had intended to run a street down for some distance, but had either been unable to obtain enough ground or had changed his mind.
They stood in pairs, each with its garden in front, with a bow-window and little portico. They appeared to be inhabited by a different class to those who lived in the rows, chiefly by city clerks, for the gardens were nicely kept, the blinds were clean and spotless, muslin curtains hung in the windows, and fancy tables with pretty ornaments stood between them. Fortunately one of them, the last on the left-hand side, was to let.
"What do you think of this, Bill?"
"It seems to be just the thing; but how about the rent, George? I should think they were awful dear."
"I don't suppose they are any more than the houses in the rows, Bill. They are very small, you see, and I don't suppose they would suit workmen as well as the others; at any rate we will see."
Whereupon George noted down on a scrap of paper the name of the agent of whom inquiry was to be made.
"No. 8," he said; "but what's the name of the street? Oh, there it is. Laburnum Villas. No. 8 Laburnum Villas; that sounds first-rate, doesn't it? I will get Mrs. Grimstone to go round to the agent to-morrow."
This Mrs. Grimstone agreed to do directly she was asked. After speaking to her husband she said, "I will get the key from the agent's and will be there just after twelve to-morrow, so if you go there straight when you get out you will be able to see the rooms and what state it's in."
"But how about Bob's dinner?" George asked.