“Well, the works are healthy enough and competition is merely a tonic to us.  We hold our own from year to year, and I’ve reached a conviction that my policy of ruthlessly scrapping machinery the moment it’s even on the down grade, is the only sound principle and pays in the long run.  And now I want something new in the advertisement line—­something not mechanical at all, but human and interesting—­calculated to attract, not middlemen and retailers, but the person who buys our string and rope to use it.  In fact I want a little book about the romance of spinning, so that people may look at a ball of string, or shoe-thread, or fishing-line, intelligently, and realise about one hundredth part of all that goes to its creation.  Now you could do a thing like that to perfection, Uncle Ernest, because you know the business inside out.”

Mr. Churchouse was much pleased.

“An excellent idea—­a brilliant idea, Raymond!  We must insist on the romance of spinning—­the poetry.”

“I don’t want it to be too flowery, but just interesting and direct.  A glimpse of the raw material growing, then the history of its manufacture.”

Ernest’s eyes sparkled.

“From the beginning—­from the very beginning,” he said.  “Pliny tells us how the Romans used hemp for their sails at the end of the first century.  Is not the English word ‘canvas’ only ‘cannabis’ over again?  Herodotus speaks of the hempen robes of the Thracians as equal to linen in fineness.  And as for cordage, the ships of Syracuse in 200 B.C.—­”

He was interrupted.

“That’s all right, but what I rather fancy is the development of the modern industry—­here in Dorset.”

“Good—­that would follow with all manner of modern instances.”

Mr. Churchouse drew a book from one of his shelves.

“In Tudor times it was ordered by Act of Parliament that ropes should be twisted and made nowhere else than here.  Leland, that industrious chronicler, came to grief in this matter, for he calls Bridport ’a fair, large town,’ where ‘be made good daggers.’  He shows the danger of taking words too literally, since a ‘Bridport dagger’ is only another name for the hangman’s rope.”

“That’s the sort of thing,” said Raymond.  “An article we can illustrate, showing the hemp and flax growing in Russia and Italy, then all the business of pulling, steeping and retting, drying and scutching.  That would be one chapter.”

“It shall be done.  I see it—­I see the whole thing—­an elegant brochure and well within my power.  I am fired with the thought.  There is only one objection, however.”

“None in the world.  I see you know just what I’m after—­a little pamphlet well illustrated.”

“The objection is that Estelle Waldron would do it a thousand times better than I can.  She has a more modern outlook and a more modern touch.  I feel confident that with me to supply the matter, she would produce a much more attractive and readable work.”