‘Now, Ah could do a lot to ’elp. A’m not a local man’; there was no need to state this, but, like most men with strong regional accents, he was oblivious of it; ‘but A know a good many Stotwell folks. A’ve been ’ere a yeer or two.’

‘To put it in a nutshell,’ said Charles slowly, ‘You’re willing to come in with me because you think my business could be built up.’

‘That’s it. That’s just it. Now, what d’ye think of the idea?’

‘It beats me, that’s what I think about it.’ Something, perhaps the unstilled protests of his inward soul, caused Charles to speak defiantly.

‘Beats yer? What beats yer?’

‘I can’t make it out, that’s why. Here you are, at a loose end for some reason, and you decide to take up window-cleaning, and then instead of starting off on your own, you decide to join up with me. But why? I’ve got nothing to offer you—no money, next to no equipment, not much trade. What do you stand to gain?’

‘It’s not what Ah stand to gain. It’s what we both stand to gain,’ said the stocky man with sudden energy, crushing out his Woodbine. ‘Ah’m a business man at ’eart. We all are, up in Mann-chester. And the essence o’ business,’ he repeated the phrase with great emphasis, ‘the essence of business is to com-bine. Suppose Ah ’ad started on me own? There’d just a been two of us cutting each other’s throats, and neither of us able to expand at all. Besides, you’ve got it all wrong. A didn’t sit down and think to meself, “A’ll go in for winder-cleaning,” and then look around for an opening. A did it t’other way round. A was at a loose end, as you call it, and A looked round for somebody as could use my organizing ability and initiative.’

The last few words were so obviously the result of brooding over the ‘Let Me Be Your Father’ type of success advertisement, that Charles felt an acute twinge of distrust. The man was a curious mixture, and besides, Charles had little or no experience of the type he represented. A Lancashire accent, to him, was something associated with music-hall humour. And yet it was always some special kind of humour, he suddenly realized; always the flat, puncturing kind that relished an attack on the pretentious or the far-fetched. The humour of practical men. And of Philistines.

Well, what of it? He needed help, and here it was offered. A young man running a window-cleaning business single-handed couldn’t have all the world to choose from when it came to finding a partner.

‘It’s a deal,’ he said seriously.