ugh another sluice, and so
on. This saved the wages of the egg twirlers, whose method of candling
eggs, as it was called, was far less rapid than the Separator. And when
I learned that one house in St. Louis alone twirled 50,000 eggs in a
day, the possible profits of the Egg Trust became clear to me. But they
were not so clear to Ethel. She said that you could not monopolise hens.
That they would always be laying eggs and putting it in the power of
competitors to hatch them by incubators. Nor did she have confidence in
the Pasteurised Feeder. 'Even if you get the parents to adopt it,' she
said, 'you cannot get the children. If they do not like the taste of the
milk as it comes out of the bottle through the Feeder, they will simply
not take it.'"

"'Well,' I answered, 'old Mrs. Beverly is holding on to hers.'"

"When I said this, Ethel sat with her mouth tight. Then she opened it
and said: 'I hate that woman.'"

"'Hate her? Why, you have never so much as laid eyes on her.'"

"'That is not at all necessary. I consider it indecent for a grey haired
woman with grandchildren to be speculating in the stock market every
week like a regular bull or bear.'"

"Every point in this outburst of Ethel's seemed to me so unwarrantable
that I was quite dazed. I sat looking at her, and her eyes filled with
tears. 'Oh Richard!' she exclaimed, 'she will ruin you, and I hate
her!'"

"'My dear Ethel,' I replied, 'she will not. And only see how you are
making it all up out of your head. You have never seen her, but you
speak of her as a grey-haired grandmother.'"

"'She must be, Richard. You have told me that Mr. Beverly is a married
man and about forty-five. No doubt he has older sisters and brothers.
But if he has not, his mother can hardly be less than sixty-five, and
he has probably been married for several years. He might easily have a
daughter coming out, next winter, and a son at Harvard or Yale; and if
their grandmother's hair is not grey, that is quite as unnatural as her
speculating in monopolised eggs in this way at her age. She must be a
very unladylike person.'"

"Ethel, I saw, was excited. Therefore I made no more point of her
theories concerning the appearance and family circle of old Mrs.
Beverly. But in justice to myself I felt obliged to remind her, first,
that I was investing, not speculating, and second, that it was Mr.
Beverly's advice I was following, and not that of his mother. 'Had
he not spoken of her,' I sa