Mushroom Town

so behind the unfinished house, reaching to and including one of the farms-Fotty, John Pritchard's. It formed a thr

Wynne's friends as were good customers of his, and partly because he was not very likely to get anything else in settlement of a longish account. This account had bee

t for exactly eleven weeks. At the end of that time he

his affairs should thus become

and even a little longer than, he was actually in their presence. This was all very well as long as he spoke only of pictures that this self-made merchant ought to buy, or of books without which some shipper's newly formed library would be incomplete. He really knew a little about these things, as also he did about architecture and engravings, vestments and Ritualism and furniture. The trouble began when he went beyond them. Wealthy business men, looking up as Terry lounged into their offices, would put up their hands defensively, cry, "It's no good, Terry-I won't listen," but would presently find themselves listening none the less. It was not that Terry was plausible. Plausible was not the word. He persuaded you only because he was, for the time being, overwhelmingly persua

annot lock innocence and rapturous good faith up. Terry, if you had locked him up, would merely have sent for his crucif

lo had never heard, took over Fotty and the strip of land that ran down to Edw

represented others; and it is perhaps significant that the nickname by which he was known among the members of

y most conveniently be made worth less. Often, like Terry, he himself is not in the real councils of his allies. They want his looks, his candours, his repute, his a

inded and brooded upon. Little did he imagine what interest, what benevolence, what affectionate regard ... or, to put it in plain English, he had no notion whatever that, instead of having Squire Wynne for a landlord, he was now the tenant of a set of

lead, anything you happened to fancy. It merely wished to be able to show, in case of need, its indefeasible title to real land, at Llanyglo or anywhere else, but the further from civilisation the better. It would be safer, and really not m

Syndicate had said. "Better have it in a new name too. All Abercely

Terry would make a

eard it goodness knows where) that "glo" was the Welsh word for "coa

we didn't invent it, and the whole thing settles itself. There's bound to be coal. Sure to be. They didn't call it that for nothing. All ground's got somet

o the galleries deep under the sandhills. Edward Garden's house was not to become a mine-manager's residence, nor a coal-quay to be construc

ust among directories and files, were Stones of Venice and The Christian Year. There was a green cardboard shade on the double-elbowed gas-bracket, and on the wall near it hung an ebony-edged T-square and a number of French curves. There was a second stool for callers, and in a small outer office a youth of sixteen read The Boys of London and New York and chewed root-liquorice. The place was shabby, as befitted a hole-in-corner enterprise, b