, it was
possible to satisfy him with brute comforts and control him with brute
discipline; but teach Jack the alphabet, and he becomes as shrewd as his
master. He begins to consider what he is worth, and to readjust the
proportion between his work and his wages--to reflect that the larger
share of the profit is, perhaps, due to himself, seeing that he reaps by
his own toil and sweat, and his master reaps by the toil and sweat of a
score."

Mr. Chiverton had manifested signs of impatience and irritability during
Mr. Forbes's address, and he now said, with his peculiar snarl for which
he was famous, "Once upon a time there was a great redistribution of
land in Egypt, and the fifth part of the increase was given to Pharaoh,
and the other four parts were left to be food to the sowers. If
Providence would graciously send us a universal famine, we might all
begin again on a new foundation."

"Oh, we cannot wait for that--we must do something meanwhile," said Sir
Edward Lucas, understanding him literally. "I expect we shall have to
manage our land less exclusively with an eye to our own revenue from
it."

Mr. Chiverton testily interrupted the young man's words of wisdom: "The
fact is, Jack wants to be master himself. Strikes in the manufacturing
towns are not unnatural--we know how those mercantile people grind their
hands--but since it has come to strikes amongst colliers and miners, I
tremble at the prospect for the country. The spirit of insubordination
will spread and spread until the very plough-boys in the field are
infected."

"A good thing, too, and the sooner the better," said Mr. Oliver Smith.

"No, no!" cried Mr. Fairfax, but Mr. Forbes said that was what they were
coming to. Sir Edward Lucas listened hard. He was fresh from Oxford,
where boating and athletic exercises had been his chief study. His
father was lately dead, and the administration of a great estate had
devolved upon him. His desire was to do his duty by it, and he had to
learn how, that prospect not having been prepared for in his education,
further than by initiation in the field-sports followed by gentlemen.

Mr. Chiverton turned on Mr. Oliver Smith with his snarl: "Your conduct
as a landowner being above reproach, you can afford to look on with
complacency while the rest of the world are being set by the ears."

Mr. Oliver Smith had very little land, but as all there knew what he had
as well as he knew himself, he did not wince. He rejoined