I have made smarter moves in my time.
As I approached the house at the end of the lane, I saw it was about the worse construction job I had seen in my life. It looked as architecturally secure as a four-year-old's drawing of his home. The angles were measurably out of line. Around every nail head were two nails bent out of shape and hammered down, and a couple of dozen welts in the siding where the hammer had missed any nail. The paint job was spotty and streaked. Half the panes in the windows were cracked. I fought down the dust in my nose, afraid of the consequences of a sneeze to the place.
My toe scuffed the top porch step and I nearly crashed face first into the front door. I had been too busy looking at the house, I decided. I knocked.
Moments later, the door opened.
The lean-faced man who greeted me had his cheeks crisscrossed with razor nicks and his shirt on wrong side out. But his eyes were bright and sparrow alert.
"Are you Mr. Marshal Thompson, the agent for Manhattan-Universal Insurance?" I put to him.
"I'm the marshal, name of Thompson. But you ain't the first to take my title for my Christian name. You from the company?"
"Yes," I said. "Were you expecting me?"
Thompson nodded. "For forty-one years."