looked down at Edwin with
half-humorous incertitude.

Edwin shrugged his shoulders superiorly, indicating by instinct, in
spite of himself, that possibly Big James was trespassing over the
social line that divided them. And yet Big James's father would have
condescended to Edwin's grandfather. Only, Edwin now belonged to the
employing class, whilst Big James belonged to the employed. Already
Edwin, whose father had been thrashed by workmen whom a compositor would
hesitate to call skilled--already Edwin had the mien natural to a ruler,
and Big James, with dignified deference, would submit unresentingly to
his attitude. It was the subtlest thing. It was not that Edwin
obscurely objected to the suggestion of his being present at the
free-and-easy; it was that he objected (but nicely, and with good
nature) to any assumption of Big James's right to influence him towards
an act that his father would not approve. Instead of saying, "Why not?"
Big James ought to have said: "Nobody but you can decide that, as your
father's away." James ought to have been strictly impartial.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

FOUR.

"Well," said Big James, when they arrived at the playground, which lay
north of the covered Meat Market or Shambles, "it looks as if they
hadn't been able to make a start yet at the Blood Tub." His tone was
marked by a calm, grand disdain, as of one entertainer talking about
another.

The Blood Tub, otherwise known as Snaggs's, was the centre of nocturnal
pleasure in Bursley. It stood almost on the very spot where the jawbone
of a whale had once lain, as a supreme natural curiosity. It
represented the softened manners which had developed out of the old
medievalism of the century. It had supplanted the bear-pit and the
cock-pit. It corresponded somewhat with the ideals symbolised by the
new Town Hall. In the tiny odorous beer-houses of all the undulating,
twisting, reddish streets that surrounded the contiguous open spaces of
Duck Bank, the playground, the market-place, and Saint Luke's Square,
the folk no longer discussed eagerly what chance on Sunday morning the
municipal bear would have against five dogs. They had progressed as far
as a free library, boxing-gloves, rabbit-coursing, and the Blood Tub.

This last was a theatre with wooden sides and a canvas roof, and it
would hold quite a crowd of people. In front of it was a platform, and
an orchestra, li