h everybody else, that it's a disgrace I haven't."

"I shall mind my own business and say nothing, Mister Raymond. It's your
affair, not ours."

"I'd have done the same, Ray, if I'd been treated the same," said Neddy
Motyer.

"It's a protest," explained Raymond Ironsyde. "To have gone, after being
publicly outraged like this in my father's will, was impossible to
anybody but a cur. He ignored me as his son, and so I ignore him as my
father; and who wouldn't?"

"I suppose Daniel will come up to the scratch all right?" hazarded
Motyer.

"He'll make some stuffy suggestion, no doubt. He can't see me in the
gutter very well."

"You must get to work, Mr. Raymond; and I can tell you, as one who
knows, that work's only dreaded by them who have never done any. You'll
soon find that there's nothing better for the nerves and temper than
steady work."

Neddy chaffed Mr. Gurd's sentiments and Raymond said nothing. He was
looking in front of him, his mind occupied with personal problems.

Neddy Motyer made another encouraging suggestion.

"There's your aunt, Miss Ironsyde," he said. "She's got plenty of cash,
I've heard people say, and she gives tons away in charity. How do you
stand with her?"

"Mind your own business, Ned."

"Sorry," answered the other promptly. "Only wanted to buck you up."

"I'm not in need of any bucking up, thanks. If I've got to work, I'm
quite equal to it. I've got more brains than Daniel, anyway. I'm quite
conscious of that."

"You've got tons more mind than him," declared Neddy.

"And if that's the case, I could do more good, if I chose, than ever
Daniel will."

"Or more harm," warned Mr. Gurd. "Always remember that, Mister Raymond.
The bigger the intellects, the more power for wrong as well as right."

"He'll ask me to go into the works, I expect. And I may, or I may not."

"I should," advised Neddy. "Bridetown is a very sporting place and you'd
be alongside your pal, Arthur Waldron."

"Don't go to Bridetown with an idea of sport, however--don't do that,
Mister Raymond," warned Richard Gurd. "If you go, you put your back into
the work and master the business of the Mill."

The young men wasted an hour in futile talk and needless drinking while
Gurd attended to other customers. Then Raymond Ironsyde accepted an
invitation to return home with Motyer, who lived at Eype, a mile away.

"I'm going to give my people a rest to-day," said Raymond as he
departed. "I shall come in here for d