The more Hugh sorrowed and scrimped, the more he gained; and word of his fellows’ hardships struck his broad, loose ears with a pleasant tinkle.  While on his journeys he stayed at common lodging-houses, and he did not give back to his employers any of the money which was allowed him to stay at hotels.  Some folk despised him, some mocked him, and many nicknamed him “the ten-pound traveler.”  To the shopkeeper who hesitated to deal with him he whined his loss, making it greater than it was, and expressing:  “The interest alone is very big.”

By such methods he came to possess one hundred and twenty pounds in two years.  His employers had knowledge of his deeds, and they summoned him to them and said to him that because of the drab shabbiness of his clothes and his dishonest acts they had appointed another in his stead.

“You started this,” he admonished Millie.  “Bring light upon mattar.”

“What can I do?” Millie replied.  “Shall I go back to the dressmaking as I was?”

Hugh was not mollified.  By means of such women man is brought to a penny.  He felt dishonored and wounded.  Of the London Welsh he was the least.  Look at Enos-Harries and Ben Lloyd and Eynon Davies.  There’s boys for you.  And look at the black John Daniel, who was a prentice with him at Carmarthen.  Hark him ordering preacher Kingsend.  Watch him on the platform on the Day of David the Saint.  And all, dear me, out of J.D.’s Ritfit three-and-sixpence gents’ tunic shirts.

He considered a way, of which he spoke darkly to Millie, lest she might cry out his intention.

“No use troubling,” he said in a changed manner.  “Come West and see the shops.”

Westward they two went, pausing at windows behind which were displayed costly blouses.

“That’s plenty at two guineas,” Hugh said of one.

“It’s a Paris model,” said Millie.

“Nothing in her.  Nothing.”

“Not much material, I grant,” Millie observed.  “The style is fashionable and they charge a lot.”

“I like to see you in her,” said Hugh.  “Take in the points and make her with an odd length of silk.”

When the blouse was finished, Hugh took it to a man at whose shop trade the poorest sort of middle-class women, saying:  “I can let you have a line like this at thirty-five and six a dozen.”

“I’ll try three twelves,” said the man.

Then Hugh went into the City and fetched up Japanese silk, and lace, and large white buttons; and Millie sewed with her might.

Hugh thrived, and his success was noised among the London Welsh.  The preacher of Kingsend Chapel visited him.

“Not been in the Temple you have, Mistar Eevanss, almost since you were spliced,” he said.  “Don’t say the wife makes you go to the capel of the English.”

“Busy am I making money.”

“News that is to me, Mistar Eevanss.  Much welcome there is for you with us.”