He then walked towards the hoarding, but could scarcely feel the
ground under his feet. From a wide aperture in the palisades a cart
full of earth was emerging; it creaked and shook as it was dragged by
a labouring horse over loose planks into the roadway; a whip-cracking
carter hovered on its flank. Edward Henry approached the aperture and
gazed within. An elegant young man stood solitary inside the hoarding
and stared at a razed expanse of land in whose furthest corner some
navvies were digging a hole....
The site!
But what did this sinister destructive activity mean? Nobody was
entitled to interfere with property on which he, Alderman Machin, held
an unexpired option! But was it the site? He perused the plan again
with more care. Yes, there could be no doubt that it was the site.
His eye roved round and he admitted the justice of the boast that an
electric sign displayed at the southern front corner of the theatre
would be visible from Piccadilly Circus, Lower Regent Street,
Shaftesbury Avenue, etc., etc. He then observed a large notice-board,
raised on posts above the hoardings, and read the following:
SITE
OF THE
FIRST NEW THOUGHT CHURCH
to be opened next Spring.
Subscriptions invited.
Rollo Wrissell: _Senior Trustee_. Ralph Alloyd: _Architect_.
Dicks & Pato: _Builders_.
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