glanced
like a child at Mr. Enwright; he roughened his hair with his hand like a
child. He had the most wistful and apologetic air.

He said:

"I just came along here for a bit instead of going to bed. I didn't know
it was so late."

"Do you often just come along here?"

"No. I never did it before. But to-night----"

"What is it you're _at_?"

"I'd been thinking a bit about that new town hall."

"What new town hall?"

"You know----"

Mr. Enwright did know.

"But haven't I even yet succeeded in making it clear that this firm is
not going in for that particular competition?"

Mr. Enwright's sarcastic and discontented tone challenged George, who
stiffened.

"Oh! I know the firm isn't going in for it. But what's the matter with
me going in for it?"

He forced himself to meet Mr. Enwright's eyes, but he could not help
blushing. He was scarcely out of his articles; he had failed in the
Final; and he aspired to create the largest English public building of
the last half-century.

"Are you quite mad?" Mr. Enwright turned away from the desk to the
farther window, hiding his countenance.

"Yes," said George firmly. "Quite!"

Mr. Enwright, after a pause, came back to the desk.

"Well, it's something to admit that," he sneered. "At any rate, we know
where we are. Let's have a look at the horrid mess."

He made a number of curt observations as he handled the sheets of
sketches.

"I see you've got that Saracenic touch in again."

"What's the scale here?"

"Is this really a town hall, or are you trying to beat the Temple at
Karnak?"

"If that's meant for an Ionic capital, no assessor would stand it. It's
against all the textbooks to have Ionic capitals where there's a
side-view of them. Not that it matters to me."

"Have you made the slightest attempt to cube it up? You'd never get out
of this under half a million, you know."

Shaking his head, he retired once more to the window. George began to
breathe more freely, as one who has fronted danger and still lives. Mr.
Enwright addressed the window:

"It's absolute folly to start on a thing like that before the conditions
are out. Absolute folly. Have you done all that to-night?"

"Yes."

"Well, you've shifted the stuff.... But you haven't the slightest notion
what accommodation they want. You simply don't know."

"I know what accommodation they _ought_ to want with four hundred
thousand inhabitants," George retorted pugnaciously.

"Is it four h