They passed a glaring new public house, the only spot in the neighbourhood where the sun could find anything to reflect his clouded brightness.
“We wanted that corner for a club,” said Fulner bitterly, “but the brewer outbid us.”
“Who’s the landlord?” demanded Christopher sharply.
Fulner paused a moment before he answered.
“You are a cousin of Mr. Masters, aren’t you?”
“No relation at all. Is he the landlord?”
“The land here is all his. Not what is on it.”
A woman was coming down the road, a woman in a bright green dress with a dirty lace blouse fastened with a gold brooch. She had turquoise earrings in her ears and rings on her fingers.
She stopped Fulner.
“Mr. Fulner,” she said in a quavering voice, “they say the master’s at the works and that Scott’s given Jim away to save his own skin. It isn’t true, is it?”