think of us
riding some night when you're ordering your hot bottle--that's the
world, and there's no miniature world. There's one world, Pembroke, and
you can't tidy men out of it. They answer you back do you hear?--they
answer back if you do them. If you tell a man this way that four sheep
equal ten, he answers back you're a liar."

Mr. Pembroke was speechless, and--such is human nature--he chiefly
resented the allusion to the hot bottle; an unmanly luxury in which he
never indulged; contenting himself with nightsocks. "Enough--there is no
witness present--as you have doubtless observed." But there was. For a
little voice cried, "Oh, mummy, they're fighting--such fun--" and feet
went pattering up the stairs. "Enough. You talk of 'doing,' but what
about the money out of which you 'did' my sister? What about this
picture"--he pointed to a faded photograph of Stockholm--"which you
caused to be filched from the walls of my house? What about--enough!
Let us conclude this disheartening scene. You object to my terms. Name
yours. I shall accept them. It is futile to reason with one who is the
worse for drink."

Stephen was quiet at once. "Steady on!" he said gently. "Steady on
in that direction. Take one-third for your four stories and the
introduction, and I will keep two-thirds for myself." Then he went to
harness the horse, while Mr. Pembroke, watching his broad back,
desired to bury a knife in it. The desire passed, partly because it was
unclerical, partly because he had no knife, and partly because he soon
blurred over what had happened. To him all criticism was "rudeness":
he never heeded it, for he never needed it: he was never wrong. All his
life he had ordered little human beings about, and now he was equally
magisterial to big ones: Stephen was a fifth-form lout whom, owing to
some flaw in the regulations, he could not send up to the headmaster to
be caned.

This attitude makes for tranquillity. Before long he felt merely an
injured martyr. His brain cleared. He stood deep in thought before the
only other picture that the bare room boasted--the Demeter of Cnidus.
Outside the sun was sinking, and its last rays fell upon the immortal
features and the shattered knees. Sweet-peas offered their fragrance,
and with it there entered those more mysterious scents that come from
no one flower or clod of earth, but from the whole bosom of evening.
He tried not to be cynical. But in his heart he could not regret that
tragedy