When he
had finished, however, he turned round to Mr. Dowling, facing him
squarely.
"You will understand, sir," he concluded, "that a scheme such as
I have pointed out could only be carried through if the whole of
the property were in one person's hands. I may say that the
information to which you referred a few days ago was perfectly
correct. A considerable portion of the south side of the hill
has already been purchased, besides certain other plots which
would interfere considerably with any comprehensive scheme of
building."
Mr. Dowling's face fell at once; his tone was one of annoyance
mingled with irritation.
"Come, come," he declared, "this sounds very bad, Mr. Tavernake,
very neglectful, very careless as to the interests of the firm.
Why did we not keep our eye upon it? Why did we not forestall
this other purchaser, eh? It appears to me that we have been
slack, very slack indeed."
Tavernake took a small book from his pocket.
"You will remember, sir," he said, "that it was on the eleventh
of May last year when I first spoke to you of this site."
"Well, well," Mr. Dowling exclaimed, sharply, "what of it?"
"You were starting out for a fortnight's golf somewhere,"
Tavernake continued, "and you promised to look into the affair
when you returned. I spoke to you again but you declared that
you were far too busy to go into the matter at all for the
present, you didn't care about this side of London, you
considered that we had enough on hand--in fact, you threw cold
water upon the idea.
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