t permit herself to
spin dreams and so lessen her activities as a spinner of yarn. I say she
might. These things mean more to a girl than a boy."

"What can I do about it? I was going to ask you to talk sense to
Raymond."

"With all the will, I am not the man, I fear. Sense varies so much from
the standpoint of the observer, my dear Daniel. You, for example, having
an old head on young shoulders, would find yourself in agreement with my
sentiments; Raymond, having a young and rather empty head on his
magnificent shoulders, would not. I take the situation to be this.
Raymond's life has been suddenly changed and his prodigious physical
activities reduced. He bursts with life. He is more alive than any youth
I have ever known. Now all this exuberance of nature must have an
outlet, and what more natural than that, in the presence of such an
attractive young woman, the sex instinct should begin to assert itself?"

"You don't mean he is in love, or anything like that?"

"That is just exactly what I do mean," answered Mr. Churchouse.

"I thought he probably liked to chatter to them all, and hear his own
voice, and talk rubbish about what he'll do for them in the future."

"He has nebulous ideas about wages and so on; but women are quicker than
men, and probably they understand perfectly well that he doesn't know
what he's talking about so far as that goes. How would it be if you took
him into the office at Bridport, where he would be more under your eye?"

"He must learn the business first and nobody can teach him like Best."

"Then I advise that you talk to him yourself. Don't let the fact that
you are only a year and three months older than Raymond make you too
tolerant. You are really ten, or twenty, years older than he is in
certain directions, and you must lecture him accordingly. Be firm; be
decisive. Explain to him that life is real and that he must approach it
with the same degree of earnestness and self-discipline as he devotes to
running and playing games and the like. I feel sure you will carry great
weight. He is far from being a fool. In fact he is a very intelligent
young man with excellent brains, and if he would devote them to the
business, you would soon find him your right hand. The machinery does
honestly interest him. But you must make it a personal thing. He must
study political economy and the value of labour and its relations to
capital and the market value of dry spun yarns. These vague ideas to