That morning Lucky woke early in a country hotel, jolted out of sleep by the fluid, merged shrieks of chickens in a nearby yard, the day still dark like a vacuum. The room contained a bed, an armchair, and a rocking horse for guests with children. Cowra treasured its new Lucky’s restaurant to the extent that the franchisee requested larger premises at a new location on the main street. Some days there was a queue for dinner. Country people don’t like to queue. Time to expand, agreed Lucky. He drove to Cowra and looked at the real estate available in town—in February it was all rusting lawns and dusty cars—and said he’d need a week to think about things. As a matter of professional practice, he gave himself one week to decide on any purchase more costly than a soda fountain. He’d reach an answer eventually, often at home in Sydney, during dinner or breakfast, in the midst of conversation with Valia, or while trying to fall asleep.

Sleep-fuddled Lucky breathed shallowly and wavered outside before getting into the car, as if he were stepping onto a tiny boat. He didn’t bother with breakfast. He was consumed by the franchise. He was a sacrifice, and he accepted the cost: it indicated that the restaurants were prevailing, that he’d done the right thing with Asquith’s gift.

With Ian’s money, he initially bought three properties in Sydney and built identical restaurants. He could have set up more outlets, but he started with a trio and waited to see what would happen, to see if the rain came, if the soil was alkaline, if there was sabotage from Greek-Australian cafes already established. (In the 1940s, a joke circulated among Anglo Sydneysiders. Q: Why was there no Greek mafia? A: Every Greek who ran a cafe thought he was a mob boss.) Some families used the franchises as intermediate arrangements. They paid Lucky his monthly fee—there was no payroll system—they paid most overheads and saved for their own cafe. The Lucky’s business, to most franchisees, screamed of safety, stopgap, trampoline. The earliest franchisees cashed out in the early 1950s. They proved that progress could be made.