Egg Pandervil found the place by the more direct method of buying a ticket and travelling on the newly constructed railway to the terminal station of a little branch line from King’s Cross. The urbanization of Farringay was only just beginning. Its shops were but five in number and insignificant in appearance; its High Street boasted (and the word is accurate) but one lamp; and its Police Force was contained in one cottage. Critics of Farringay sometimes called it a one-eyed street, because nearly the whole of one side was occupied by the red-brick wall that enclosed the estate of Squire Oaks. Signs of progress, however, were not wanting. Drainpipes had been thoughtfully deposited upon the roadside against the time when it should occur to somebody to use them; and in the fields enclosing Coppett’s Lane several stacks of bricks had been dumped—as an earnest of good intentions—by a speculative builder who called himself Blogg and Brother. Blogg himself occupied a raw red double-fronted villa at the corner of Coppett’s Lane, a very commanding position.
