the
corner in the soft sunshine.

Edwin put on a stern, casual expression for the benefit of Stifford, as
who should say: "What a trial these frivolous girls are to a man
immersed in affairs!" But Stifford was not deceived. Safe within his
lair, Edwin was conscious of quite a disturbing glow. He smiled to
himself--a little self-consciously, though alone. Then he scribbled
down in pencil "Light of Asia. Miss J. Orgreave."

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWO.

FATHER AND SON AFTER SEVEN YEARS.

Darius came heavily, and breathing heavily, into the little office.

"Now as all this racketing's over," he said crossly--he meant by
`racketing' the general election which had just put the Liberal party
into power--"I'll thank ye to see as all that red and blue ink is
cleaned off the rollers and slabs, and the types cleaned too. I've told
'em ten times if I've told 'em once, but as far as I can make out,
they've done naught to it yet."

Edwin grunted without looking up.

His father was now a fattish man, and he had aged quite as much as
Edwin. Some of his scanty hair was white; the rest was grey. White
hair sprouted about his ears; gold gleamed in his mouth; and a pair of
spectacles hung insecurely balanced half-way down his nose; his
waistcoat seemed to be stretched tightly over a perfectly smooth
hemisphere. He had an air of somewhat gross and prosperous untidiness.
Except for the teeth, his bodily frame appeared to have fallen into
disrepair, as though he had ceased to be interested in it, as though he
had been using it for a long time as a mere makeshift lodging. And this
impression was more marked at table; he ate exactly as if throwing food
to a wild animal concealed somewhere within the hemisphere, an animal
which was never seen, but which rumbled threateningly from time to time
in its dark dungeon.

Of all this, Edwin had definitely noticed nothing save that his father
was `getting stouter.' To Edwin, Darius was exactly the same father,
and for Darius, Edwin was still aged sixteen. They both of them went on
living on the assumption that the world had stood still in those seven
years between 1873 and 1880. If they had been asked what had happened
during those seven years, they would have answered: "Oh, nothing
particular!"

But the world had been whizzing ceaselessly from one miracle into
another. Board schools had been opened in Bursley, wondrous affairs,
with ventilation; indeed ventilation had been di