Most of the industries were small; some of them died,
perishing of bankruptcy or fire; and a few had moved, leaving
their shells. Of the relics, the best was a brick building which
had been the largest and most important factory in the quarter:
it had been injured by a long vacancy almost as serious as a
fire, in effect, and Adams had often guessed at the sum needed to
put it in repair.
When he passed it, he would look at it with an interest which he
supposed detached and idly speculative. "That'd be just the
thing," he thought. "If a fellow had money enough, and took a
notion to set up some new business on a big scale, this would be
a pretty good place--to make glue, for instance, if that wasn't
out of the question, of course. It would take a lot of money,
though; a great deal too much for me to expect to handle--even if
I'd ever dream of doing such a thing."
Opposite the dismantled factory was a muddy, open lot of two
acres or so, and near the middle of the lot, a long brick shed
stood in a desolate abandonment, not happily decorated by old
coatings of theatrical and medicinal advertisements. But the
brick shed had two wooden ells, and, though both shed and ells
were of a single story, here was empty space enough for a modest
enterprise--"space enough for almost anything, to start with,"
Adams thought, as he walked through the low buildings, one day,
when he was prospecting in that section.
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