ed for six months as an
accountant. I assure you that it comes in extremely useful now!
I can see my way a little where he can't see it at all. He
glories in the fact that he was never any good at arithmetic or
figures of any kind, and never looked at either after "Smalls."
The estate of course used to be looked after in the good
old-fashioned way by the family lawyers. But a few years ago
the Squire quarrelled with these gentlemen, recovered all his
papers, which no doubt went back to King Alfred, and resolved to
deal with things himself. There is an office here, and a small
attorney from Fallerton comes over twice or three times a week.
But the Squire bosses it. And you never saw anything like his
accounts! I have been trying to put some of them straight--just
those that concern the house and garden--after six weeks'
acquaintance! Odd, isn't it? He is like an irritable child with
them. And his agent, who is seventy, and bronchitic, is the
greatest fool I ever saw. He neglects everything. _His_ accounts
too, as far as I have inspected them, are disgraceful. He does
nothing for the farmers, and the farmers do exactly as they
please with the land.

'Or did! For now comes the rub. Government is interfering,
through the County Committee. They are turning out three of Mr.
Mannering's farmers by force, because he won't do it himself,
and ploughing up the park. I believe the steam tractor comes
next week. The Squire has been employing some new lawyers to
find out if he can't stop it somehow. And each time he sees them
he comes home madder than before.

'Of course it all comes from a passionate antagonism to the war.
He is not a pacifist exactly--he is not a conscientious
objector. He is just an individualist gone mad--an egotistical,
hot-tempered man, with all the ideas of the old _regime_, who
thinks he can fight the world. I am often really sorry for
him--he is so preposterous. But the muddle and waste of it all
drives me crazy--you know I always was a managing creature.

'But one thing is certain--that he is a most excellent scholar.
I knew I had got rusty, but I didn't know how rusty till I came
to work for him. He has a wonderful memory--seems to know every
Greek author by heart--and a most delicate and unerring taste. I
thought I should find a mere dabbler--an amateu