‘Just beginning?’
‘I am about to begin.’
‘In London, or near here?’
‘In London probably.’
‘H’m.... I am practising in Markton.’
‘Indeed. Have you been at it long?’
‘Not particularly. I designed the chapel built by this lady’s late father; it was my first undertaking—I owe my start, in fact, to Mr. Power. Ever build a chapel?’
‘Never. I have sketched a good many churches.’
‘Ah—there we differ. I didn’t do much sketching in my youth, nor have I time for it now. Sketching and building are two different things, to my mind. I was not brought up to the profession—got into it through sheer love of it. I began as a landscape gardener, then I became a builder, then I was a road contractor. Every architect might do worse than have some such experience. But nowadays ‘tis the men who can draw pretty pictures who get recommended, not the practical men. Young prigs win Institute medals for a pretty design or two which, if anybody tried to build them, would fall down like a house of cards; then they get travelling studentships and what not, and then they start as architects of some new school or other, and think they are the masters of us experienced ones.’
While Somerset was reflecting how far this statement was true, he heard the voice of Paula inquiring, ‘Who can he be?’