"I just came along here for a bit instead of going to bed. I didn't know it was so late."
"No. I never did it before. But to-night----"
"I'd been thinking a bit about that new town hall."
"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.
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."
"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?"
"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 hundred thousand?" Mr. Enwright asked, with bland innocence. He generally left statistics to his partner.
Mr. Enwright was now at the desk yet again.
"There's an idea to it," he said shortly, holding up the principal sheet and blinking.