his will, and when the first fury had waned
Darius had found his son's will working like a chemical agent in his
defenceless mind, and had yielded. It was astounding. And always it
would be thus, until the time when Edwin would say `Do this' and Darius
would do it, and `Do that' and Darius would do it, meekly,
unreasoningly, anxiously.

Edwin's relief was so great that it might have been mistaken for
positive ecstatic happiness. His mind ranged exultingly over the future
of the business. In a few years, if he chose, he could sell the
business and spend the whole treasure of his time upon programmes. The
entire world would be his, and he could gather the fruits of every art.
He would utterly belong to himself. It was a formidable thought. The
atmosphere of the marketplace contained too much oxygen to be quite
grateful to his lungs... In the meantime there were things he would do.
He would raise Stifford's wages. Long ago they ought to have been
raised. And he would see that Stifford had for his dinner a full hour;
which in practice Stifford had never had. And he would completely give
up the sale and delivery of newspapers and weeklies, and would train the
paper-boy to the shop, and put Stifford in his own place and perhaps get
another clerk. It struck him hopefully that Stifford might go forth for
orders. Assuredly he himself had not one quality of a commercial
traveller. And, most inviting prospect of all, he would stock new
books. He cared not whether new books were unremunerative. It should
be known throughout the Five Towns that at Clayhanger's in Bursley a
selection of new books could always be seen. And if people would not
buy them people must leave them. But he would have them. And so his
thoughts flew.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

THREE.

And at the same time he was extremely sad, only less sad than his
father. When he allowed his thoughts to rest for an instant on his
father he was so moved that he could almost have burst into a sob--just
one terrific sob. And he would say in his mind, "What a damned shame!
What a damned shame!" Meaning that destiny had behaved ignobly to his
father, after all. Destiny had no right to deal with a man so
faithlessly. Destiny should do either one thing or the other. It
seemed to him that he was leading his father by a string to his
humiliation. And he was ashamed: ashamed of his own dominance and of
his