The banners had been replaced and
every one was reseated, talking or laughing. On one side raged a
discussion as to how far the decoration of a plain surface should
go--"Roughing it," some of them called it. At the end of the table
two men were wrangling as to whether the upper or the lower half
of a tall structure should have its vertical lines broken; and, if
so, by what. Further down high-keyed voices were crying out
against the abomination of the flat roof on the more costly
buildings; wondering whether some of their clients would wake up
to the necessity of breaking the sky-line with something less
ugly--even if it did cost a little more. Still a third group were
in shouts of laughter over a story told by one of the staff who
had just returned from an inspection trip west.
Young Breen looked down the length of the table, watched for a
moment a couple of draughtsmen who stood bowing and drinking to
each other in mock ceremony out of the quaint glasses filled from
the borrowed flagons, then glanced toward his friend Minott, just
then the centre of a cyclone that was stirring the group midway
the table.
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