tion, on a plane far above Foskett.
He worked for Finney as he never worked for Foskett, and consulted him
about his reading: naturally Finney liked Martin and did all he could
to help him. On several Sundays Martin went to lunch at the cottage
and met Mrs Finney, a pleasant little woman whose beauty was somewhat
marred by an expression of perpetual surprise. She was, like her
husband, a slight and unimposing figure, and she shrank from the
society of the college ladies with their continual "shop" conversation,
partly from shyness and partly from boredom. When she was not looking
after her baby she used to play the violin and read _The Bookman_ and
_The Studio_. For several hours every week she struggled with accounts
and wondered how things would work out: she managed well, and somehow,
miraculously, but persistently, they did work out.

She also liked Martin and he would come often to them. In a world that
was hard and unsympathetic he was graciously different; he was
essentially someone in whom interest could and should be taken, and
this was what the Finneys needed. They saw and, after a time,
understood his limitations, realising how his intellectual solitude was
narrowing his outlook and how his heretical views about politics and
life in general were left crude and immature because he dared not
pronounce them openly and demand criticism. Criticism he lacked, and
it was criticism they gave him, not the best perhaps, for the Finneys
erred occasionally on the side of excessive culture and preciosity, but
such criticism as would turn violence into strength and reveal
possibilities of reason and feeling where he had seen before nothing
but ignorance and sentimentality.

As Martin was destined for Oxford Finney thought it wise to introduce
him to the writing of Belloc. "You'll get heaps out of him," he said.
"Of course he goes to extremes, but his criticism of Socialism is the
only sane one and worth a million of Mallock and Cox and that gang.
And his arguments about religion aren't all nonsense. I don't agree
with him" (Finney attended school chapel regularly and was a party
Liberal), "but it's a point of view. And he can write."

Martin had never considered this outlook on the world before, and,
though at times he was angry, he began to read Belloc eagerly,
especially the verses. He had often heard his uncle talking about
Belloc, but so far he had never troubled to investigate the matter
further: now he