And again she had him talking.

He told of a plan for apartment buildings Joe had conceived in those early days.

"I don't say it was practicable, I give it just to show you what the man had in him," he said.

"Big ideas that strike in deep, the kind that change whole cities." Instead of a street like a canyon with sheer walls on either side, the front of each building was to recede in narrow terraces, floor by floor, so letting floods of sunlight down into the street below and giving to each apartment a small terrace garden.

As she listened, Ethel grew intent.