em. Sorry to deprive you, but----"

"Thanks, old fellow, take them, by all means. I've seen all I wanted to
see."

"Well, I'm just off to Larchmere now. Want to be there to check the
quantities, and there's my other house at Fittlesdon. I must go on
afterwards and set it out, so I shall probably be away some days. I'm
taking Harrison down, too. You won't be wanting him, eh?"

Ventimore laughed. "I can manage to do nothing without a clerk to help
me. Your necessity is greater than mine. Here are the plans."

"I'm rather pleased with 'em myself, you know," said Beevor; "that roof
ought to look well, eh? Good idea of mine lightening the slate with that
ornamental tile-work along the top. You saw I put in one of your windows
with just a trifling addition. I was almost inclined to keep both gables
alike, as you suggested, but it struck me a little variety--one red
brick and the other 'parged'--would be more out-of-the-way."

"Oh, much," agreed Ventimore, knowing that to disagree was useless.

"Not, mind you," continued Beevor, "that I believe in going in for too
much originality in domestic architecture. The average client no more
wants an original house than he wants an original hat; he wants
something he won't feel a fool in. I've often thought, old man, that
perhaps the reason why you haven't got on----you don't mind my speaking
candidly, do you?"

"Not a bit," said Ventimore, cheerfully. "Candour's the cement of
friendship. Dab it on."

"Well, I was only going to say that you do yourself no good by all those
confoundedly unconventional ideas of yours. If you had your chance
to-morrow, it's my belief you'd throw it away by insisting on some
fantastic fad or other."

"These speculations are a trifle premature, considering that there
doesn't seem the remotest prospect of my ever getting a chance at all."

"I got mine before I'd set up six months," said Beevor. "The great
thing, however," he went on, with a flavour of personal application, "is
to know how to use it when it _does_ come. Well, I must be off if I mean
to catch that one o'clock from Waterloo. You'll see to anything that may
come in for me while I'm away, won't you, and let me know? Oh, by the
way, the quantity surveyor has just sent in the quantities for that
schoolroom at Woodford--do you mind running through them and seeing
they're right? And there's the specification for the new wing at
Tusculum Lodge--you might draft that some time when you've not