death to
make a more sensible fellow of me, and by that time it was too late. I
mean I was too old to be trained into profitable business habits. Up to
nineteen I had been little more than an errand and office boy, and all
through the after years I never got a much better position.'

'I can't understand that,' remarked Monica thoughtfully.

'Why not?'

'You seem to--to be the kind of man that would make your way.'

'Do I?' The description pleased him; he laughed cheerfully. 'But I
never found what my way was to be. I have always hated office work, and
business of every kind; yet I could never see an opening in any other
direction. I have been all my life a clerk--like so many thousands of
other men. Nowadays, if I happen to be in the City when all the clerks
are coming away from business, I feel an inexpressible pity for them. I
feel I should like to find two or three of the hardest driven, and just
divide my superfluous income between. A clerk's life--a life of the
office without any hope of rising--that is a hideous fate!'

'But your brother got on well. Why didn't he help you?'

'We couldn't agree. We always quarrelled.'

'Are you really so ill-tempered?'

It was asked in Monica's most naive tone, with a serious air of
investigation which at first confused Widdowson, then made him laugh.

'Since I was a lad,' he replied, 'I have never quarrelled with any one
except my brother. I think it's only very unreasonable people that
irritate me. Some men have told me that I was far too easy-going, too
good-natured. Certainly I _desire_ to be good-natured. But I don't
easily make friends; as a rule I can't talk to strangers. I keep so
much to myself that those who know me only a little think me surly and
unsociable.'

'So your brother always refused to help you?'

'It wasn't easy for him to help me. He got into a stockbroker's, and
went on step by step until he had saved a little money; then he
speculated in all sorts of ways. He couldn't employ me himself--and if
he could have done so, we should never have got on together. It was
impossible for him to recommend me to any one except as a clerk. He was
a born money-maker. I'll give you an example of how he grew rich. In
consequence of some mortgage business he came into possession of a
field at Clapham. As late as 1875 this field brought him only a rent of
forty pounds; it was freehold property, and he refused many offers of
purchase. Well, in 1885, the year befor