little empty room, and she meekly
disappeared with the letter, the dictionary, and the piece of paper.

* * * * *

'Well, how's business, Twemlow? By the way, have a cigar.'

Ethel, at the dusty table in the little room, could just see her
father's broad back through the door which, in her nervousness, she had
forgotten to close. She felt that the door ought to have been latched,
but she could not find courage deliberately to get up and latch it now.

'Thanks,' said Arthur Twemlow. 'Business is going right along.'

She heard the striking of a match, and the pleasant twang of cigar-smoke
greeted her nostrils. The two men seemed splendidly masculine,
important, self-sufficient. The triviality of feminine atoms like
herself, Rose, and Millicent, occurred to her almost as a new fact, and
she was ashamed of her existence.

'Buying much this trip?' asked Stanway.

'Not much, and not your sort,' said Twemlow. 'The truth is, I'm fixing
up a branch in London.'

'But, my dear fellow, surely there's no American business done through
London in English goods?'

'No, perhaps not,' said Twemlow. 'But that don't say there isn't going
to be. Besides, I've got a notion of coming in for a share of your
colonial shipping trade. And let me tell you there's a lot of business
done through London between the United States and the Continent, in
glass and fancy goods.'

'Oh, yes, I know there is,' Stanway conceded. 'And so you think you're
going to teach the old country a thing or two?'

'That depends.'

'On what?'

'On whether the old country's made up her mind yet to sit down and
learn.' He laughed.

Ethel saw by the change of colour in her father's neck that the
susceptibilities of his patriotism had been assailed.

'What do you mean?' Stanway asked pugnaciously.

'I mean that you are falling behind here,' said Twemlow with cold,
nonchalant firmness. 'Every one knows that. You're getting left. Look
how you're being cut out in cheap toilet stuff. In ten years you won't
be shipping a hundred dollars' worth per annum of cheap toilet to the
States.'

'But listen, Twemlow,' said Stanway impressively.

Twemlow continued, imperturbable: 'You in the Five Towns stick to
old-fashioned methods. You can't cut it fine enough.'

'Old-fashioned? Not cut it fine enough?' Stanway exclaimed, rising.

Twemlow laughed with real mirth. 'Yes,' he said.

'Give me one instance--one instance,' cried Stanway.