labor or
without equivalent is got over the devil's back to be squandered in some
devil's pastime. Harry, bettors infer dupes. When you have to pay a
jockey a small fortune to do his duty, he may be an honest man--but
there are inferences. Can't you think of something better to do?"

"I wanted to be an artist and father would not let me. I wanted to have
my voice trained and father laughed at me. I wanted to join the army and
father was angry and asked me if I did not want to be a pugilist. He
would not hear of anything but the mill. John, I won't go to the mill
again. I won't be a cotton-spinner, and I'll be glad if you will buy me
out at any price."

"I won't do that--not yet. I'll tell you what I will do. I will rent
your share of the mill for a year if you will take Captain Cook and the
yacht and go to the Mediterranean, and from the yacht visit the old
cities and see all the fine picture galleries, and listen to the music
of Paris and Milan or even Vienna. You must stay away a year. I want you
to realize above all things that to live to _amuse_ yourself is the
hardest work the devil can set you to do."

"I promised Fred Naylor I would rent him my share."

"How dared you make such a promise? Did you think that I, standing as I
do, for my father, Stephen Hatton, would ever lower the Hatton name to
Hatton and Naylor? I am ashamed of you, Harry! I am that!"

"John, I am so unhappy in the mill. You don't understand--"

"Your duty is in the mill. If a man does his duty, he cannot be unhappy.
No, he can not."

"I have been doing my duty five years, and hating every hour of it. And
I promised the Naylor boys--"

"What?"

"That I would sell or rent my share in this mill to them."

"It is impossible for you to keep that promise. You cannot sell a
shilling's worth belonging to the mill property without mine and
mother's permission. Neither of us will give it. Your plan won't work,
Harry. Mother and I will stand by Hatton mill as firm as an anvil beaten
upon. Both of us will do anything we can to make you reasonably happy,
but you must never dare to name selling or renting your right to anyone
but your brother. The mill is ours! No stranger shall own a bobbin in
it! One or both of us will run it until we follow our father, and
then--"

"Then what?"

"Our sons will take our place if so it pleases God. Harry, dear, dear
lad, go and take a long holiday among the things you love, and after it
we will come to a kind