then David would be out of the way-out of his way and out of his mother's, too! .

He found his cheap school. It was not really a boarding school at all. A master in a board school in Cheshire was willing to take a boy to live with him and see that he went regularly to school. Ewins jumped at the idea. He could have sent David to a much better school socially for practically the same cost but he knew he was getting a cheap article, so to speak, and made no further inquiries.

He said David was going to a boarding school and was clever enough to keep the actual kind of school from his wife till David had gone and then he felt he could face any music.

Mrs. Ewins upbraided him and called him "unnatural," "not fit to be a father," and "a miser!"

"Aye, aye," he said. "Spend money an' you're a 'ero! Mak' it an' save it an' they call you a miser. Shut up, woman! Where'll th' lad get a better education? If only I 'ad 'ad a chance like David's got.

So David pursued his education in the board school and never told any of his companions whom he met in the holidays and who went to Manchester or good secondary schools, the particular kind of school he attended. He just lied when he was asked if they had "Prefects" and how long "prep" was and how many slept in his "dormitory" and such-like searching questions.

But Mrs. Ewins kept up her nagging and Thomas, when David was thirteen, sent him for a little over a year to a real boarding school at a fee of forty guineas a year and ever after boasted of the cost of his son's education.

As for Dolly, she went to the Manchester High School and to a finishing school for two years at Llandudno, for which Mrs. Ewins paid by agreement. She also gave David pocket money surreptitiously, for Mr. Ewins pretended money spoilt boys-made them spendthrifts. He always had the most excellent of moral and healthy reasons if he wished to save his money.

W

CHAPTER VI

DAVID, DOLLY AND LANCE

HEN David Ewins left school he was put to

his father's business-which was now "Ewins and Tugwell, Makers of Hat Trimmings, etc.," and showed a remarkable aptitude for neglecting it. His father raged and reminded his son how much money had been spent on his education. Was this the return he meant to make to his father's devotion and self-sacrifice? He-Ewins père-had had to work hard and deny himself, and he had given his son comforts and luxuries and advantages that he had never had! But he'd leave him no money if he didn't work. He'd better improve..

But David put no heart in the business at all. He loathed it. He wanted to be a farmer and live in the country. Mrs. Ewins asked why not, if David wished it. Ewins snapped: "If 'e wishes it. . . . Damn it! woman, is 'e to 'ave and do everything 'e wishes? I didn't, and 'e won't. What's the matter with that business ?"

"He doesn't like it." "Doesn't like it. Who does like business?" This was rhetoric for Ewins, if cornered properly, would have admitted that he liked it. "It's something for 'im to drop into, isn't it? One would think 'e'd be proud and glad to go into 'is father's business— but of course you put 'im against it."

"Yes, you."

"I did nothing of the sort. I'd be very glad if he did like the business. It was he himself said he'd like farming."

"Then he can go out as a ploughman if 'e wants, but if 'e does 'e'll 'ave none o' my money."

That ended the discussion and settled David's career. It did not put an end, however, to all discussions regarding David. They were almost without end. David, having no interest in the business of Ewins and Tugwell, except that of compulsion, behaved accordingly. He scamped his work and grew fairly expert in dodging his father. He had to do some work of sorts, but it was a poor berth he occupied and he occupied it poorly. Mr. Ewins used to get very angry but it never did any good. He had his revenge by refusing to raise David's allowance. It was the kind of weapon Ewins could use with determination and zest.

As David grew up he got beyond the thrashable stage, and corporal punishment was a thing not to be thought of. Once when Mr. Ewins in a great passion said, "By God, I'll give thee a good 'idin'," David stood up, flung his coat in a corner, doubled up his fist and said, "Come on."

Mr. Ewins hesitated and retreated. It was the first big revolt he had faced and he was a physical coward. Mrs. Ewins went white and Dolly wept.

Mr. Ewins said: "Put thi coat on.

Tha's

just behave thisel in future."

And he sat down awkwardly.

David put his coat on and knew he had no more

blows to fear. But he was very short of money-at

least he would have been if it hadn't been for his mother. When David asked for a "rise" he was told he didn't deserve it-he wasn't worth the money he got!

Sometimes Lance Harvey was mentioned, and Lance's excellent scholastic record annoyed Ewins when he compared it with his own son's. Of course David got that thrown at him faithfully and without stint of adjectives. But Lance's career was a subject for jest on the part of Mr. Ewins. He felt there that he scored. His son was in a business that made money. As for Lance Harvey! .

"A reporter," Ewins would say. "Penny-a-liner 'e'll never make two pound a week-that's summat, after all that swaggerin' schoolin'. These fools as play about wi' writin' are no good-they never leave a penny behind 'em; they dunno 'ow to make money."

But nobody was taken in by these speeches now. David, living uncongenially at work, leapt out of it and fell badly. He haunted public houses. He had been drunk more than once before he was twenty years of age. He got curses from his father, foolish indulgence from his mother and a certain amount of instinctive sympathy from his sister. He took these as a matter of course and seemed to live for the sound of the hooter that said the hands could now cease work at "Ewins and Tugwell's."

Dorothy was rather pretty: she had light brown. eyes and flaxen hair: her features were regular and her mouth was small and could shut tightly.

When she left school she was bright and pleasant and for a little time her father seemed to take an in