nd pitched them down in the cubicle. Then he went into the cubicle,
and with the negligent gesture of long habit unlocked a part of the
desk, the part which had once been his father's privacy, and of which he
had demanded the key more than a year ago. It was all now under his
absolute dominion. He could do exactly as he pleased with a commercial
apparatus that brought in some eight hundred pounds a year net. He was
the unquestioned regent, and yet he told himself that he was no happier
than when a slave.

He drew forth his books of account, and began to piece figures together
on backs of envelopes, using a shorthand of accounts such as a principal
will use when he is impatient and not particular to a few pounds. A
little wasp of curiosity was teasing Edwin, and to quicken it a
comparison was necessary between the result of the first six months of
that year and the first six months of the previous year. True, June had
not quite expired, but most of the quarterly accounts were ready, and he
could form a trustworthy estimate. Was he, with his scorn of his
father, his brains, his orderliness, doing better or worse than his
father in the business? At the election of 1886, there had been
considerably fewer orders than was customary at elections; he had done
nothing whatever for the Tories, but that was a point that affected
neither period of six months. Sundry customers had assuredly been lost;
on the other hand, Stifford's travelling had seemed to be very
satisfactory. Nor could it be argued that money had been dropped on the
new-book business, because he had not yet inaugurated the new-book
business, preferring to wait; he was afraid that his father might after
all astoundingly walk in one day, and see new books on the counter, and
rage. He had stopped the supplying of newspapers, and would deign to
nothing lower than a sixpenny magazine; but the profit on newspapers was
negligible.

The totals ought surely to compare in a manner favourable to himself,
for he had been extremely and unremittingly conscientious. Nevertheless
he was afraid. He was afraid because he knew, vaguely and still deeply,
that he could neither buy nor sell as well as his father. It was not a
question of brains; it was a question of individuality. A sense of
honour, of fairness, a temperamental generosity, a hatred of meanness,
often prevented him from pushing a bargain to the limit. He could not
bring himself to haggle desperately. An