“And people often won’t take the houses till the roads are made,” said the old lady.
“So sometimes we’re a year or two in a place. People are so particular about damp, you see,” said the old gentleman.
“And many of the houses are damp?” I asked inquiringly.
“Well, ma’am, what can you expect,” he replied confidentially, “seeing how things goes? Here’s, say, a field here to-day, and the surveyor marks it out into roads. Then one speculative builder runs up a lot of carcases on it, and fails. Then another buys the carcases, and finishes ’em in a showy, flashy way; and then they put them at very low rents, to tempt people to take ’em.”
“And raises the rents as soon as one or two tenants have been in them,” said the old lady.
“It tempts people like,” continued the old gentleman; “they see nice showy-looking houses in an open place, and they think they’re healthy.”
“And they’re not?” I said.
The old man shrugged his shoulders.
“Healthy? No!” cried the old lady. “How can they be healthy, with the mortar and bricks all wet, and the rain perhaps been streaming into them for months before they were finished? Why, if you go and look in some of those big half-finished houses, just two streets off, you see the water lying in the kitchens and breakfast-rooms a foot deep. That’s how he got his rheumatics.” Here she nodded at her husband.
“Don’t bother the lady about that, Mary,” said the old man, mildly.