“Of course I don’t mind.  That’s nothing, but I want to speak to you on the general question.  I do wish, Raymond, you’d be more dignified.”

“Dignified!  Me?  Good Lord!”

“Well, if you don’t like that word, say ‘self-respecting.’  You might take longer views and look ahead.”

“You may bet your boots I do that, Dan.  This life isn’t so delightful that I am content to live in the present hour, I assure you.  I look ahead all right.”

“I mean look ahead for the sake of the business, not for your own sake.  I don’t want to preach, or any nonsense of that kind; but there’s nobody else to speak, so I must.  The point is that you don’t see in the least what you are doing here.  In the future my idea was—­and yours, too, I suppose—­that you came into the business as joint partner with me in everything.”

“Jolly sporting of you, Dan.”

“But that being so, can’t you see you ought to support me in everything?”

“I do.”

“No, you don’t.  You’re not taking the right line in the least, and what’s more, I believe you know it yourself.  Don’t think I’m selfish and careless about our people, or indifferent to their needs and rights.  I’m quite as keen about their welfare as you are; but one can’t do everything in a moment.  And you’re not helping them and only hindering me by talking a lot of rubbish to them.”

“It isn’t rubbish, Dan.  I had all the facts from Levi Baggs, the hackler.  He understands the claims of capital and what labour is entitled to, and all the rest of it.”

“Baggs is a sour, one-sided man and will only give you a biased and wrong view.  If you want to know the truth, you can come into Bridport and study it.  Then you’ll see exactly what things are worth, and what we get paid in open market for our goods.  All you do by listening to Levi is to waste your time and waste his.  And then you wander about among the women talking nonsense.  And remember this:  they know it’s nonsense.  They understand the question very much better than you do, and instead of respecting you, as they ought to respect a future master, they only laugh at you behind your back.  And what will the result be?  Why, when you come to have a voice in the thing, they’ll remind you of all your big talk.  And then you’ve got to climb down and they’ll not respect you, or take you seriously.”

“All right, old chap—­enough said.  Only you needn’t think the people wouldn’t respect me.  I get on jolly well with them as a matter of fact.  And I do look ahead—­perhaps further than you do.  I certainly wouldn’t promise anything I wouldn’t try to perform.  In fact, I’m very keen about them.  And I believe if we scrapped all the machinery and got new—­”

“When you’ve mastered the present machinery, it will be time to talk about scrapping it,” answered Daniel.  “People are always shouting out for new things, and when they get them—­and sacrifice a year’s profits very likely in doing so—­often the first thing they hear from the operatives is, that the old machinery was much better.  Our father always liked to see other firms make the experiments.”