“William.” Smith sat on the hub of a discarded wheel as William oiled the springs of his coach. “How’s business?”
“Dull, Mr Smith, dull.” William Foreman shook his head. “Worse than that. It’s dying.”
Smith cut half an inch of tobacco and handed it to William. He crushed more between his finger and thumb and pressed it into the bowl of his pipe. “You did a lot of work on your new coach, William. What went wrong?” He scratched a spark from his tinder box.
“Thank you, Mr Smith, much obliged.” William accepted the tobacco. “What went wrong? Too much interest on the loans until you paid them for me, and then a highwayman happened, Mr Smith, and a rival who runs a more modern coach and charges lower fares.”
“I see.” Smith puffed his tobacco to a glow. “Tell me, William. I have time to liste
