The drains don’t ventilate Mr. Grigblay he says, I’ve put three rockets in and been waiting half an hour and I can’t see any smoke out at top yet. You’re in too great a hurry I told him; you keep at it another hour or two with all the rockets you’ve got there, and you’ll see a bit of smoke right enough. This sucking expert had wetted all the pipes right up, and made them stone cold, and then expected to find a nice drought! However, a fashionable gentleman drove up in a saloon and rang the front bell; Jarrad, of Quince and Jarrad, patronized by Royalty—I’ve seen something of their doings before now. Jarrad didn’t get asked in to tea, it seems, for he soon came round to find out how his young hopeful’s drain-bursting experiments were getting on; and then they brought a pressure pump and other gear from the saloon and so I left him to go running his nose round the joints like a terrier dog, and rub the skin off same as he does at his Royal Palace, to try and catch a whiff of smoke after he’s pumped up the ten pounds or whatever the pressure is they keep on their mercury gauges and contraptions. I hope no harm will come, Sir, but his kind are very mischievous fellows that get their living finding fault with other people’s work, and the more faults they find the bigger man they hold themselves out to be. I thought best to let you know what was going forward, and if you hear any complaints perhaps our good friend Mr. Potch will have a kind word or two to say to Mr. Jarrad or to anyone else who claims he, knows better ways of finding fault with other people’s drains than what Potch does.
Apologizing for troubling you but thought you better know what is afoot.
Yours truly,
Brash, as we have noticed, commonly does not know the right thing to do; or, when he knows, frequently does not do it. He ought to have told Spinlove he wanted the drains tested by an independent authority, and either left Spinlove to nominate someone or directed him to employ Quince and Jarrad. To go to the firm behind his architect’s back is, if not a definitely hostile step, a sharp reminder to Spinlove that he has lost his employer’s confidence. Brash’s insensitiveness, however, probably exonerates him from any intention of wronging Spinlove; and Spinlove has invited this treatment by his unaccommodating attitude and his impatience at the suggestion that all is not as it should be. Grigblay’s apprehensions are justified, though his contempt for Messrs. Quince and Jarrad is not at all likely to be. Mr. Potch is the District Surveyor who brought Spinlove much trouble while the house was being built.
(PERSONAL) SPINLOVE TO GRIGBLAY
Dear Mr. Grigblay, 26.5.26.
Yes, you are correct—I have heard nothing of any drain-testing; but as I am sure everything is right no amount of testing can find anything wrong.
I am obliged to you for writing.
Yours truly,
Spinlove is in a fool’s paradise indeed, if he can welcome the approach of the sworn tormentor of drains—for to that dire body I divine Quince and Jarrad to belong.
SUMMARY OF VARIATIONS
GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE
Dear Sir, 29.5.26.
As requested, we send you herewith summary of variations and shall be glad to receive certificate for £1,300 further on account. We have heavy commitments just at this time, and as the amount fell due in the middle of February last we shall be glad to receive your certificate and Sir Leslie Brash’s cheque without further delay. The account, we may point out, now stands as follows:
This is the third or fourth application Grigblay has made for payment on account of extras in respect of which Spinlove has previously certified only for £500.
(ENCLOSURE) GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE
INTERIM SUMMARY OF VARIATIONS
[I have numbered the items and added in italics the thoughts likely to be awakened in Spinlove.]
So far as maybe judged, the cost of making good omissions and defects due to oversights and mistakes of the architect is just about £400; and if Spinlove had provided in the contract against water driving into the chimneys and rising in the cellar, and so forth, the contract price would have been increased, so that his guilt in inflating costs is represented by an even smaller sum. In fact, having regard to the unavoidable small accidents and unforeseeable contingencies and interferences that attend all building operations, a man of far more experience than Spinlove would be well satisfied to have no larger sum to account for. Spinlove has unfortunately misled Brash with inadequate estimates given offhand but it did not appear that Brash attached importance to those estimates, nor that he would have abandoned the work had he been given exact ones. Spinlove has also let the account get out of hand. He has not kept himself informed of the state of affairs; he has neglected to enforce the contract condition that extras shall be formally authorized, as such, at the time the work is done, and he has not enforced the condition requiring that day work vouchers, showing the time and materials expended on additional work which from its nature cannot be estimated by measurement, shall be rendered week by week. This is bad, but so many alterations were made by Brash, and there were so many interferences with the contract arrangements, that some excuse may be made for Spinlove. He did, in fact, warn Brash at the beginning of the building operations that, if the contract arrangements were interfered with, it would be impossible to safeguard extras.
The most indigestible part of the account is, however, the large excess of expenditure over the sums provided in the contract as “provisions” to meet the cost of work done by specialists, and of fittings subject to choice. These appear under the subheading “Extras on Provisions.” The provision for general contingencies (item 31) was reduced by Spinlove from three to one hundred pounds, when he was trying to bring down the amount, of the tender to a figure commensurate with Brash’s swallow, and it seems likely that he pared down the provisional sums originally allowed by him at the same time, and with the same object. It is a great temptation to an architect to let his hopes for the best overrule his judgment, in this way, but it is a counsel of weakness and folly, or even worse; for his client supposes the contract sum covers the equipment he needs, and for the architect knowingly to mislead him for the purpose of committing him to the undertaking is dishonest. We cannot, however, take Spinlove to task, for we do not know the facts. What we do know, however, is that in the course of a year or two extras mount up, all unbeknown, in a most embarrassing way; and that building-owners, after they are habituated to the contract price and warmed with enthusiasm for the undertaking, are prone to indulge their ambitions, and sometimes even try to forget past extravagances lest they shall discourage new ones.
It will be noticed that in imagining Spinlove’s reflections on the summary so obligingly drawn by Grigblay in a form—that analyses the account and saves Spinlove the trouble of analysing it for himself, I have represented him as accepting Grigblay’s charge for pointing to make good damage by frost. This is a peep ahead on my part.
SPINLOVE TO GRIGBLAY
Dear Sir, 31.5.26.
I have duly received your Interim Summary of Variations, for which I am obliged, but I am concerned to notice that the total is even higher than you led me to expect. There are a number of charges that want explaining and others I certainly cannot allow, and I should like Mr. Grigblay to make an appointment to meet me here to go into the account, as soon as ready; bringing with him orders for extras, day-work vouchers, etc., supporting your charges. Also particulars of “Various minor works £192,” and reasons why the charge for picked bricks is made. I expressly arranged with Hoochkoft to supply at their original quoted price, as I informed you at the time.
When I have been into matters with Mr. Grigblay I will arrange for Mr. Tinge to take up the account. Some of the items charged day-work will have to go into a measured account.
Yours faithfully,
I cannot see Grigblay spending hours unravelling day-work sheets to Spinlove’s satisfaction, but perhaps he will temper the wind to the shorn lamb and send round the estimating clerk who has charge of the account. This clerk, however, would not be able to explain or justify the charges. The proper co
urse will be for Spinlove to push his head into the papers; get explanations from the builder on obscure points; settle contentious matters with him, and then refer the account for Tinge to arrive at the exact figures.
SPINLOVE TO BRASH
Dear Sir Leslie Brash, 31.5.26.
I have at last received an “Interim Summary” of the account from Grigblay; the exact figure has still, I am afraid, to be determined by the quantity surveyor, and there are certain charges which I cannot agree to—at least not without explanations—but I am very sorry indeed to say that the total is a good deal more than I expected. I am afraid the extras have mounted very much, although you were perhaps prepared for this. I enclose a brief summary showing how the account stands, but is not the final figure which, I hope and trust, will be substantially less.
If I can give you more information will you please let me know? The final account will not be ready for several weeks, I’m afraid.
I enclose note of my own charges in respect of the last two certificates, which I omitted to send at the time. Will you please accept my apologies for my forgetfulness?
Yours sincerely,
This is not, I fancy, the best of all possible occasions for Spinlove to apply for payment of his fees, even though he apologizes for not having done so before; and our young friend’s amiable characteristic of identifying himself with the torment his client suffers in parting with his money, is here particularly inappropriate. We see Spinlove crouching before a lash he in no way deserves, and which he would have no reason to fear if he did show he expected it. He invites Brash to be dissatisfied with his architect, who tells him he had no idea the total would be so large and apologizes for the amount, thereby avowing that he was neglectful in not keeping himself informed; and who takes responsibility for, matters which do not lie at his door at all. He is “very sorry indeed” for the total of the account, he is “afraid” the extras have mounted up, although he supposes Brash expected they would; he does not know how it has all happened, and he is “afraid” the account will not be ready for several weeks, although the delay is an unavoidable circumstance with which he has nothing to do and only Brash’s undisciplined impatience will suffer from it. If Spinlove’s purpose had been to represent himself in the worst light he could scarcely have devised a neater or more complete way of doing so.
His letter is the more absurd for the finished tact he displays in the document that accompanies it—the “brief summary” which is to inform Brash how the account stands. Spinlove, it will be seen below, lumps the whole of the total balance of extras on to Brash by the adroit device of appropriating the whole of the credit items, totalling £468 9s. 9d., to himself, and cancelling them out against the extra expenditure for which he is personally responsible. The document is, in fact, not so much a statement of account between Brash and Grigblay as an apportionment of guilt between Brash and Spinlove. We may, I think, admire his ingenuity without being positively noisy in our applause. The facts set forth, however, are true: the figures are exact; the information is what Brash asked for. Brash undoubtedly ordered the extras laid to his charge, and is responsible for the inflation of the account by the total of them, precisely as stated. At the same time. . . . However, the point for astonishment is that Spinlove should cover a document so conclusive of his innocence by a letter so eloquent of guilt.
BRASH ON EXTRAS
BRASH TO SPINLOVE
Mr. Spinlove,2.6.26.
Eighteen hundred and ninety-two pounds! Is eighteen hundred the sum you intended to intimate when you informed me anticipated additional extras accruing to “several” hundreds? So you did not anticipate so largely augmented a figure, but supposed that I was prepared for it; and the final amount is still to be eventually ascertained, and you hope it will be a substantially reduced figure, and you will not agree to these monstrously extortionate inflations without “explanations”! Explanations, indeed! Permit me to emphatically indicate that I will certainly require something more than mere explanations of this scoundrelly attempt to victimize me. Is this the gentleman of high professional attainments who undertook to safeguard his employer’s interests and protect him from the inordinate rapacity of building contractors-whom I was always well aware to be no better than packs of thieves and robbers? Is this the Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects of impeccable credentials, specially recommended to my favourable attention for his distinguished achievements, who allows himself to be cajoled and humbugged and swindled as long as “explanations” are given? The matter has taken a most serious magnification of aspect, and you may inform Mr. Grigblay that, explanations or no explanations, I will not so much as condescend to consider his preposterous account unless he cuts it down by at least one half!
£400 for alterations to kitchen! The claim is perfectly monstrous. The kitchen arrangements, may I remind you, were not increased in dimensions by the corrective emendations. I certainly anticipated a small extra cost to reimburse the builder for his trouble in adapting the work he had previously performed; but four hundred pounds! and as “approximate cost”! Does this intimation signify that, if I consent to the additional charge, the fellow is to be at liberty to further augment the amount?
Then, “piping ditch—£114.” Will you permit me to ask leave to remind you that you quoted me £20 for that work and that I hold your letter tendering the offer? That item of cost of £114, at any rate, will not, I warn you in anticipation, be amenable to any “explanations”; for I definitely repudiate any intention of paying more than the previously stipulated sum. “Time lost by Sir Leslie Brash’s orders!” When did I order time to be lost? Preposterous! “Various minor alterations two hundred pounds!” Does my architect seriously propound the suggestion that I should disburse any sums this saucy fellow demands without even being previously informed under what pretence the exaction is extorted? “Extra journey money”—what does that portend, may I be permitted to ask? I was prepared for an additional extra in respect of various grates and fittings, but what conceivable excuse is propounded why I should be mulcted for electric wiring and casement gear and heating radiators and drains and water-pipes; and why, may I venture to inquire, has the fellow made no deductions for the saving on the well and pump which you previously held out as an inducement to me to sanction the alternative arrangement? And why has the £300 saving disappeared, which you informed me had been included in the contract to reimburse expenditure for additional extra work which might eventually become needful, and which you asseverated must be reserved for that express purpose? Am I to understand that Mr. Grigblay has appropriated these credits, and that you have failed to detect the fraud?
It is necessary that I should take an early opportunity of conferring verbally with you without delay, as the whole matter has attained most serious proportions. Nineteen hundred pounds! It is the most monstrous and unheard-of imposition that ever was attempted; and if Mr. Grigblay or my architect supposes that I am a gentleman who will meekly submit to such barefaced robbery and extortion, he win regretfully find himself very greatly mistaken.
Yours truly,
Poor old Brash! He has let himself go with a vengeance, and it Is to be hoped he felt better afterwards.
SPINLOVE SEEKS ADVICE
SPINLOVE TO THE VICAR OF RUNCHESTER
Dear Uncle Harold, 5.6.26.
I do not know who to turn to for advice. I have just finished a house for a certain Sir Leslie Brash, and the enclosed is a copy of a letter I have received from him in reply to one of mine covering a summary of the builder’s Statement of Account. There is rather a heavy bill of extras, but that is not altogether my fault; and, whether it is or not, how can I allow anyone to write to me as he does? I want to do the right thing and to avoid quarrelling with him, but how is it to be done? Can you tell me what you think I ought to do? and can you write at once, please? My love to Auntie and yourself.
Your affectionate nephew,
Apparently, Brash has aroused unrighteous impulses in Spinlove
, who feels the need of a little spiritual guidance to ginger up his humility, console his wounded pride, and enable him to swallow the affront without doing violence to his self-respect.
SPINLOVE TO FREDERICK DALBET
Dear Fred, 5.6.26.
Look what your friend Brash has written to me! How can I answer such a letter without hopelessly quarrelling with him? The whole bother about the extras is really his fault and not mine—or most of it is, anyway. Did you ever read such disgraceful abuse? As it was you who introduced me to Brash I feel you might be able to help smooth things over. Hurry up with your reply.
Yours,
JIM.
Spinlove’s position is made difficult by the fact that he is so much younger a man than Brash; but, if he were not, Brash would scarcely have written as he did.
DALBET TO SPINLOVE
Dear Jim, 6.6.26.
I don’t see what I can do. Tell the old bounder to go to blazes. I warned you he was peppery, and he has gone in off the deep end this time, that is all. He has always been nice to me—but then I am not his architect. Cheer up!
Honeywood Settlement Page 7