who know
anything that is worth knowing, and like that of course I can never be.
But to make Towneleys possible there must be hewers of wood and drawers
of water--men in fact through whom conscious knowledge must pass before
it can reach those who can apply it gracefully and instinctively as the
Towneleys can. I am a hewer of wood, but if I accept the position
frankly and do not set up to be a Towneley, it does not matter."

He still, therefore, stuck to science instead of turning to literature
proper as I hoped he would have done, but he confined himself henceforth
to enquiries on specific subjects concerning which an increase of our
knowledge--as he said--was possible. Having in fact, after infinite
vexation of spirit, arrived at a conclusion which cut at the roots of all
knowledge, he settled contentedly down to the pursuit of knowledge, and
has pursued it ever since in spite of occasional excursions into the
regions of literature proper.

But this is anticipating, and may perhaps also convey a wrong impression,
for from the outset he did occasionally turn his attention to work which
must be more properly called literary than either scientific or
metaphysical.

CHAPTER LXXIV

About six months after he had set up his shop his prosperity had reached
its climax. It seemed even then as though he were likely to go ahead no
less fast than heretofore, and I doubt not that he would have done so, if
success or non-success had depended upon himself alone. Unfortunately he
was not the only person to be reckoned with.

One morning he had gone out to attend some sales, leaving his wife
perfectly well, as usual in good spirits, and looking very pretty. When
he came back he found her sitting on a chair in the back parlour, with
her hair over her face, sobbing and crying as though her heart would
break. She said she had been frightened in the morning by a man who had
pretended to be a customer, and had threatened her unless she gave him
some things, and she had had to give them to him in order to save herself
from violence; she had been in hysterics ever since the man had gone.
This was her story, but her speech was so incoherent that it was not easy
to make out what she said. Ernest knew she was with child, and thinking
this might have something to do with the matter, would have sent for a
doctor if Ellen had not begged him not to do so.

Anyone who had had experience of drunken people would have seen at a
gl