Hilaire Belloc

“ He knew this old Postlethwaite of old, a man of grievances, a man whom it was the lawyer's business to dissuade from law; a man whom he couldn't quite call mad, but a man whom Mr. Kirby certainly did not trust with any member of the firm; a man with whose considerable business in scattered freeholds (quite twenty of them up and down the suburbs of Ormeston, and nearly all of them unfortunate investments) Kirby in a moment of generosity or folly—perhaps rather of freakishness—had undertaken for his firm to let and sell and value, and now he wished he hadn't! ”

“ There was marked a lodge, a ground floor, a first floor and a second; at the back a small enclosed backyard, and in the side elevation could be seen let into the high steep roof of the topmost story a large skylight. It was beautifully tinted in blue.
"Architects do imitate nature well!" said Mr. Kirby half to himself. "It 's Greystones!" and he chuckled.
"You needn't laugh, Kirby!" thundered the aged Postlethwaite. "Oh, you 'll laugh the other side of your mouth before I 've done! Ruined, Kirby! Smashed! Destroyed! And no clue!"
Mr. Kirby put up his hand. ”

“ Brassington's movements. Mr. Kirby smiled broadly, and remembered suddenly the letting of Greystones some days before. How old Jock McAuley's son—Jimmy, the name was—had come with pompousness of youth and bargained to have Greystones for a month. "To paint," he said. "To paint with a friend!" Yes ... To paint things red! Mr. Kirby smiled broadly again. He saw nothing clear. He saw an imbroglio forming, and he gloried in such things! ”