Endless Night / Бесконечная ночь. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Someone who looked like a farmer, someone who I guessed to be one of the competitive builders, a couple of lawyers, I think, one a man who looked as though he was a stranger from London, well dressed and professional-looking. I don’t know if he made an actual bid, he may have done. If so it was very quietly and done more by gesture. Anyway the bidding petered to an end, the auctioneer announced in a melancholy voice that the reserve price had not been reached and the thing broke up.

�That was a dull business,’ I said to one of the countrylooking fellows whom I was next to as I went out.

�Much the same as usual,’ he said. �Been to many of these?’

�No,’ I said, �actually it’s the first.’

�Come out of curiosity, did you? I didn’t notice you doing any bidding.’

�No fear,’ I said. �I just wanted to see how it would go.’

�Well, it’s the way it runs very often. They just want to see who’s interested, you know.

’

I looked at him inquiringly.

�Only three of ’em in it[18 - �em = them], I should say,’ said my friend. �Whetherby from Helminster. He’s the builder, you know. Then Dakham and Coombe, bidding on behalf of some Liverpool firm, I understand, and a dark horse from London, too, I should say a lawyer. Of course there may be more in it than that, but those seemed the main ones to me. It’ll go cheap. That’s what everyone says.’

�Because of the place’s reputation?’ I asked.

�Oh, you’ve heard about Gipsy’s Acre, have you? That’s only what the country people say. Rural Council ought to have altered that road years ago – it’s a death trap.’

�But the place has got a bad reputation?’

�I tell you that’s just superstition. Anyway, as I say, the real business’ll happen now behind the scenes, you know. They’ll go and make offers. I’d say the Liverpool people might get it. I don’t think Whetherby’ll go high enough.

He likes buying cheap. Plenty of properties coming into the market nowadays for development. After all, it’s not many people who could afford to buy the place, pull that ruined house down and put up another house there, could they?’

�Doesn’t seem to happen very often nowadays,’ I said.

�Too difficult. What with taxation and one thing and another, and you can’t get domestic help in the country.