he thing that riles me! The
same if I look in at a shop window; out rushes a gabbling swindler, and
wants to drag me in--"

"Only to _take_ you in, Mr. Bradshaw," interjected Eleanor.

"Good! To take me in, with a vengeance. Why, if I've a mind to buy,
shan't I go in of my own accord? And isn't it a sure and certain thing
that I shall never spend a halfpenny with a scoundrel who attacks me
like that?"

"How can you expect foreigners to reason, Jacob?" exclaimed Mrs.
Bradshaw.

"You should take these things as compliments," remarked Spence. "They
see an Englishman coming along, and as a matter of course they consider
him a person of wealth and leisure, who will be grateful to any one for
suggesting how he can kill time. Having nothing in the world to do but
enjoy himself, why shouldn't the English lord drive to Baiae and back,
just to get an appetite?"

"Lord, eh?" growled Mr. Bradshaw, rising on his toes, and smiling with
a certain satisfaction.

Threescore years all but two sat lightly on Jacob Bush Bradshaw. His
cheek was ruddy, his eyes had the lustre of health; in the wrinkled
forehead you saw activity of brain, and on his lips the stubborn
independence of a Lancashire employer of labour. Prosperity had set its
mark upon him, that peculiarly English prosperity which is so
intimately associated with spotless linen, with a good cut of clothes,
with scant but valuable jewellery, with the absence of any perfume save
that which suggests the morning tub. He was a manufacturer of silk. The
provincial accent notwithstanding, his conversation on general subjects
soon declared him a man of logical mind and of much homely information.
A sufficient self-esteem allied itself with his force of character, but
robust amiability prevented this from becoming offensive; he had the
sense of humour, and enjoyed a laugh at himself as well as at other
people. Though his life had been absorbed in the pursuit of solid gain,
he was no scorner of the attainments which lay beyond his own scope,
and in these latter years, now that the fierce struggle was decided in
his favour, he often gave proof of a liberal curiosity. With regard to
art and learning, he had the intelligence to be aware of his own
defects; where he did not enjoy, he at least knew that he ought to have
done so, and he had a suspicion that herein also progress could be made
by stubborn effort, as in the material world. Finding himself abroad,
he had set himself to observ