Sam and the client took a cab to Whalley Range, where Minnifie inspected several houses which were to be had at about his price. But he was hard to satisfy, and, what was worse, apparently unable to define his reasons for dissatisfaction. As Sam praised this and that about a house, Minnifie admitted that such things were praiseworthy, but he would, please, see another house. Sam was a little piqued and tried his best to be genial, suspecting that Minnifie resented being fobbed off with a “foreman”; and Sam’s best was very good, so that presently the ice was thawed.
Minnifle stood at the bow-window of a dining-room and looked up and down the street. It was empty save for a tradesman’s boy. From somewhere round the corner came the diminished rattle of a milk-cart. Minnifle shook his head sadly.
“It’s quiet,” he said. “See that road. Nothing stirring. What is there for the missus to look at when she sits in the window?”
“It’s morning,” said Sam. “Things will be brisker in the afternoon.” But his tone lacked conviction, and he could not resist the temptation to add: “There’s a cat crossing the road now.”
“Come out,” said Minnifle. “This’ull none do,” and when they stood upon the door-step he sniffed the air of Whalley Range with disapproval. “I don’t like it and it’s no use pretending that I do. It’s got a cold smell to me. It isn’t homely.”
“I know what you mean,” said Sam, diagnosing the trouble. “Wait a bit.” He gave the cabman an address and was careful to leave the window open. They came to other streets where the scent of yesterday’s fried fish still lingered in the air and the nose of Mr. Minnifle inhaled it greedily. “This is better,” he pronounced.
They had come to Greenheys, which, when De Quincey’s father built a country house there in 1791, was “separated from the last outskirts of Manchester by an entire mile.” It is by no means separated now, and good houses of the mid-Victorian period are to be had cheaply because good tenants dislike bad neighbours. Travers had one of these survivals from an urbane past on his books and Sam hugged himself for thinking of it now: that house had proved itself the whitest of white elephants.
Mr. Minnifie, exhilarated by the spicy smells of Greenheys, was no longer a timid excursionist looking only where his guide bade him, but a house hunter hot upon the trail, with eyes that spied on each side of their route.
“Ah!” he called suddenly. “Stop!”
The cabman stopped. “But we’re not there,” said Sam, rather blankly.