"Well, they'd ought to sell for not more than eight thousand dollars."
"And cost as much less as you can make them hold together for? I don't believe I can do anything for you, Mr. Graves," Jackson replied firmly.
"Is that so? Well, you are the first man I ever saw who was too busy to take on a paying piece of business."
He settled himself more comfortably in the chair opposite Hart's desk, and began to describe his scheme. There was to be a double row of houses, three stories and basement, each one different in style, in a different kind of brick or terra cotta, with a distinguishing "feature" worked in somewhere in the design. They were to be bait for the thrifty clerk, who wanted to buy a permanent home on the instalment plan rather than pay rent. There were many similar building schemes in different parts of the city, the advertisements of which one might read in the street cars.
"Why do you want me to do the job for you?" Hart asked at last. "Any boy just out of school could do what you are after."
"No, he couldn't! He hasn't the knack of giving a fresh face to each house. But it won't be hard work for you!"
This, the architect knew, was true. It would be very easy to have Cook hunt up photographs from French and English architectural journals, which with a little arrangement would serve for the different houses. With a few hours' work he could turn out that individual façade which Graves prized commercially. Here was the large job that could be done easily and roughly, opportunely offering itself.
"I don't like to have such work go through the office. That's all there is about it!" he exclaimed at last.
"Is that so? Too tony already. Well, we won't fight over that. Suppose you make the sketches and let another feller prepare the details?"
There were many objections to this mode of operation, but the contractor met every one. Hart himself thought of Meyer, a clever, dissipated German, to whom he had given work now and then when the office was busy. Meyer would do what he was told and say nothing about it.