The Honeywood Files (23 page)

Yours faithfully,

As before, Grigblay shows he will not stand nonsense.

PINTLE TO BRASH

Dear Sir, 25.10.25.

Enclosed copy of letter received to-day Mr. Grigblay which perhaps you ought to see.

Yours truly,

BRASH TO PINTLE

Dear Sir, 26.10.25.

I shall be obliged if you will signify to Mr. Grigblay my apologetic regrets that the necessary preventative precautions should have incommoded him. In the circumstances I am greatly pleased to accept the suggestion he makes and I desire him to desist from operations on the terrace steps until Mr. Spinlove’s return.

Yours faithfully,

Five times!

GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE

Dear Sir, 30.10.25.

We understand you are back and enclose list of extras ordered by Sir Leslie Brash during your absence. They are of a minor character and as Bloggs received the orders when the men were actually at work, he had to do what he was told or stop the work. We have kept time sheets as the work cannot be measured and must be charged day-work.

We understand from Bloggs that the bedrooms are to be papered. As you know, they are being finished with a felt-faced float for distempering. We shall be glad of particulars of papers at once. Bloggs was given orders to dark stain oak, but we await your directions.

Yours faithfully,

Builders are always ready to render day-work accounts—that is accounts based on the cost of the men’s time and of materials—instead of accounts based on measurements priced at the contract rates, and it is only fair they should do so when the work involves pulling down or small separate jobs; but the method is unsatisfactory for the owner because, as the builder will be reimbursed for all his outgoings and he receives in addition (usually) 15 percent on the net cost for establishment charges and profit, there is no inducement to economy; and because, as the workmen and the foreman are aware of the circumstances, there is a tendency for everyone to ease off on day-work. In addition to this, the logging of the men’s time is in the foreman’s charge and, as he is accountable to the builder for keeping down the cost of labour covered by the tender, the day-work time sheets are apt to record hours which, properly, should be charged against the contract. Day work accounts, unlike measured accounts, always pay the builder; and from what has been said it will be realized that a dishonest builder can make them pay a great deal too well.

(CONFIDENTIAL) GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE

Sir, 30.10.25.

I think I ought to let you know at once that a fortnight ago Sir Leslie Brash sent me drawings and specification for block of four cottages he wants erected down at bottom by lower road, and asked me for a price. The name on the drawings is Mr. Cohen Snitch, but a young man in our prime costing says they are copied from published plans by Mr. Sutcliffe Regenstook, a.r.i.b.a., and we have turned them up in our file of the “Builders’ Record” of May 7th, 1923. The specification is a ready-made affair with just a tender-form without any conditions, and the bricks, chimneys, windows, and all sorts are to be “same as at Honeywood.”

Now, apart from the work being only half described and position on site, drains, roads, and water supply, etc., left out, we don’t do speculative work and don’t care to tender without proper particulars and quantities. At the same time we should be quite willing to do the work under our present contract schedule and leave it to Mr. Tinge to measure and settle the account, but we do not think this would suit the old gentleman as what he is after is a cut price and cut fees, without doubt. Not in any case should we agree to a proposal of the kind without consulting with you, and this was the reply we made and were then asked to return plans etc.

Since then Bloggs tells me Nibnose & Rasper’s manager sneaked in down at bottom looking for mushrooms Bloggs thought, but young Rasper turned up after, and had the face to ask questions about water. Bloggs told him we were managing without any and saw him off, so it’s pretty clear what is going on; but I’m not going to have Nibnose & Rasper learning how to build from me, and if Sir Leslie Brash brings them on to the ground he will have to pay me for a night watchman and a new lock-up or I shan’t be able to keep a plank or a ladder or a drain pipe or a bag of plaster or anything else on the job without a man sits on it. That young Rasper would strip the tiles off the roof, if you so much as turned your head to cough. I don’t forget the trick he played me with that old six hundred gallon cast iron tank I loaned them and then they told me they hadn’t had it. I happened to go along by, and there was my brave tank set up ten feet in the air on a staging and daubed over so it won’t be recognized. Ho says Master Johnny Rasper, all of a surprise; Is that yours? Forgot where they had stole it.

Sir Leslie Brash sent me a plan and a picture of a gimcrack garage affair with pink asbestos slates and blue doors and a bit of bargeboard painted yellow and a flag at the gable. He had torn it out of Hutt and Gambols’ reach-me-down bungalow catalogue, but had cut off the firm’s name and the price for fear I should know too much, and he wanted me to give a price for two of them joined together for his cars to go in at the North West end by trades entrance. It would be a pity to put a thing like that up against his house, as I think you will agree; besides we can’t build the stuff H. & G. spew about all over the country nor at their price if we did, and I think the old gentleman should be told so.

With apologies for troubling you but thought you ought to know it.

Yours faithfully,

A very pleasant chatty letter—the letter of a friend! It has apparently occupied Grigblay’s evening hours. Brash’s intention, no doubt, is to save his pocket by cutting out architects’ fees—for no doubt he made a bargain with Mr. Snitch; and he may feel, also, that Grigblay’s work is unduly expensive and that this is due to Spinlove’s complicated methods and exacting demands. He may also wish to “be his own architect,” and believes that by uttering the words “two three- and two five-room cottages” and getting someone to “draw out the plan” and by agreeing a price with the builder, he is being it. Whatever the results are he will be slow to see defects in “my own work,” and if the plans do not give him what he wants he will enjoy “making improvements” and take great credit to himself for the ingenious botching and makeshifts by which the shortcomings are made good. He will helplessly protest against the builder’s account for extras, whether it is fair or not, and will always believe that he was “swindled.”

As for Mr. Cohen Snitch, his kind is common. He has a knowledge of building sufficient to enable him to hold himself out as an architect in those wide fields that public ignorance puts at his disposal; and his many diverse activities bring him commissions which his reputation as an architect would deny him. The obligations of a profession of which he is not a member do not weigh with him; and he enjoys the same advantage over the accredited architect as the man who ignores the rules of a game has over one who observes them.

It is difficult to believe that Brash is not aware that he is treating his architect shabbily; but we have already seen that Brash can outface such consciousness. He perhaps regards the whole affair as a matter of fees. He is paying Spinlove for the house, but sees no reason why he should pay him when he can manage without his services; his instincts, in fact—or let us say his antecedents—do not allow him to distinguish between obligations due to a professional man and the consideration expected by a commercial agent. If Brash is conscious that Spinlove is giving Honeywood a devotion for which he can never be paid except in thanks, he probably merely regards his architect’s services as remarkably good value for the money, and is too unaware of any reciprocal obligations to take any pleasure in acknowledging them.

What is the unlucky Spinlove going to do about it all? He first flies for rescue to his friend Wychete, it seems.

SPINLOVE TO WYCHETE

Dear Mr. Wychete, 1.11.25.

I am sorry to bother you again but a most awkward thing has happened. I enclose copy of the builder’s letter which gives the facts. I found it on my return from a four weeks’ holiday abroad. Mr. Snitch is a house and land agent. I met him once, as he was appointed by the adjoining owner to agree a water course. The cottages will probably be three hundred yards or more from the house, but associated with it as is evidently the owner’s intention—note the similar brickwork, chimneys, etc. I should be most grateful for any hints what to do.

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely,

P.S.—Could you possibly send me a line at once? I shall have to meet the owner in a few days, at latest.

SPINLOVE TO BRASH

Dear Sir Leslie Brash, 1.11.25.

I returned to the office yesterday. Mr. Grigblay has sent me a list of variations and extras ordered during my absence, and there is a question you have raised about the terrace steps. I can come on to the site on Friday or Saturday, if you will let me know when I can meet you, so that these and any other matters may be settled on the spot.

I had a delightful time abroad.

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely,

Spinlove has apparently put off meeting Brash until he may hope to have had Wychete’s reply.

WYCHETE TO SPINLOVE

My Dear Spinlove, 2.11.25.

Your luck seems out. The position is certainly awkward, as you say, but the probability is that your client does not realize the unfairness to you—though one would imagine he intends a snub. Much depends on your personal relations and upon the kind of man he is. You alone can judge how far expostulation or protest may be made to weigh with him. Mr. Snitch’s action seems most unprofessional, but he does not belong to our camp and in any case we do not know what happened; there is nothing to prevent your client employing him if he wishes, and it is no good taking any steps to get Mr. S. to withdraw. Even if you were able to do so it might not persuade your client to entrust the work to you.

Adopting Regenstook’s design is, of course, a breach of copyright, and would give him grounds for an action for damages. Copying your details also comes very near to the same thing. Your client’s intention is clear, and the wrong is of the same kind though so different in degree that you would scarcely be in a position to claim damages.

I should be interested to know the end of the story. You must not lose time or your client may accept the other builder’s tender.

Ever yours,

SPINLOVE TO BRASH

Dear Sir Leslie Brash, 3.11.25.

I confirm telephone message fixing Friday at 10 a.m. for our meeting on site.

Mr. Grigblay has mentioned to me that you asked him to tender for a block of cottages which, for certain reasons, he felt unable to do without first conferring with me. I am, naturally, so much interested in Honeywood that I should be indeed grieved not to be allowed to design the accessory buildings, particularly as you mentioned these cottages to me as matters in which you would want my advice.

However, we can speak of this on Friday, but I write to warn you, before you commit yourself in any way, that the plans you sent Mr. Grigblay are not an original design at all, but have been copied from plans by another architect which were published a short time ago in one of the building papers. The designer holds the copyright in his plans and you will be liable to action for damages if you proceed. In the same way my detail drawings of Honeywood are my copyright and cannot be used for the proposed cottages without my consent.

Yours sincerely,

Spinlove is quite right in his statement of the fact of the copyright ownership, but he manages to suggest a masterfulness in architects which exceeds the life.

SPINLOVE TO WYCHETE

Dear Mr. Wychete, 6.11.25.

I am most grateful to you for your letter. Directly I got it I wrote to my client and warned him of the breach of copyright, but when I saw him two days later he told me he had “provisionally accepted” (as he termed it) tender for the cottages from a local firm, Nibnose & Rasper. He had, however, accepted the tender in fact; by “provisionally” he meant that he was at liberty to accept, or not, a supplementary estimate for outbuildings.

Well, there was a great to do. He was most indignant with Snitch for fobbing him off with someone else’s design and charging thirty-five guineas for it as an “inclusive fee,” and he means to make him disgorge, for he has already paid the fellow.

He was quite nice to me—in fact particularly so, for he is a self-important man and rather obstinate in favouring his own ideas [
ahem!
], and I really do not think it occurred to him that he was injuring me. He thought he would save fees and get a cheaper building, and that it was entirely his own affair.

The tender he has accepted is for £1,350 for the block of four cottages—an impossible price. A great deal of the work is left out of the specification, to say nothing of drains, paths and water supply, and though the specification calls for the building to be completed in all details etc., Nibnose & Rasper attach to their tender a letter which, rather slyly, excludes work not described. There are no conditions of contract.

I had to point all this out to Brash and insist that the cottages will cost at least £1,700 before he has finished, and perhaps nearly £2,000, and that there was nothing in the contract to prevent the builder putting in the cheapest and most shoddy work, and that he would have a huge bill for extras and be at the builders’ mercy—in fact Brash began at last to understand what an architect is for.

The next difficulty was how to get Nibnose & Rasper to withdraw with merely nominal compensation or none at all. Owing to a previous muddle they have a quite unfounded grievance against me; however, Brash wrote and told them he had discharged Snitch and appointed me his architect, and I got Nibnose to my office and, after cross-examining him on what he had included for and what not, he was obliged to agree that, as a basis for a contract, his tender was a farce. He was quite reasonable; said he had done his best with the particulars supplied, that there were big risks—and so on. Finally it was agreed that he and Grigblay should tender to a new design and that the lowest tender should be accepted. So that’s that, and I am enormously obliged for your hints, without which I do not know what would have happened; and Brash, if he only knew it, is still more deeply indebted to you.