vested interest
to John was a vested interest, culture was culture, and security was
certainly security--none of them were symbols of age. Further, the
social question--at least so far as it had to do with outbreaks of youth
and enthusiasm--was too familiar to him to have any general significance
whatever. What with women, labor people, and the rest of it, he had no
time for philosophy--a dubious process at the best. A man who had to get
through so many daily hours of real work did not dissipate his energy
in speculation. But, though he had not listened to Felix's remarks, they
had ruffled him. There is no philosophy quite so irritating as that of
a brother! True, no doubt, that the country was in a bad way, but as to
vested interests and security, that was all nonsense! The guilty causes
were free thought and industrialism.

Having seen them all off to Hampstead, he gave his mother her good-night
kiss. He was proud of her, a wonderful woman, who always put a good face
on everything! Even her funny way of always having some new thing or
other to do you good--even that was all part of her wanting to make the
best of things. She never lost her 'form'!

John worshipped that kind of stoicism which would die with its head up
rather than live with its tail down. Perhaps the moment of which he was
most proud in all his life was that, when, at the finish of his school
mile, he overheard a vulgar bandsman say: "I like that young ----'s
running; he breathes through his ---- nose." At that moment, if he had
stooped to breathe through his mouth, he must have won; as it was he had
lost in great distress and perfect form.

When, then, he had kissed Frances Freeland, and watched her ascend the
stairs, breathless because she WOULD breathe through her nose to the
very last step, he turned into his study, lighted his pipe, and sat
down to a couple of hours of a report upon the forces of constabulary
available in the various counties, in the event of any further
agricultural rioting, such as had recently taken place on a mild scale
in one or two districts where there was still Danish blood. He worked
at the numbers steadily, with just that engineer's touch of mechanical
invention which had caused him to be so greatly valued in a department
where the evolution of twelve policemen out of ten was constantly
desired. His mastery of figures was highly prized, for, while it had
not any of that flamboyance which has come from America and the g