business unsaleable.'

For a moment there were signs of wavering in Mr. Quinn's face. The
fingers of his hands twisted in and out of each other, and a pitiable
look of great distress came into his eyes. Then he unclasped his hands
and placed them flat on the table before him.

'I shall hold on,' he said. 'I shall not close my mill while I have a
shilling left to pay my workers with.'

'Well,' said Hyacinth, 'it is for you to decide. At least, you can count
on my doing my best, my very best.'

CHAPTER XVIII

Mr. Quinn carried on his struggle for nearly a year, although from the
very first he might have recognised its hopelessness. Time after time
Hyacinth made his tour, and visited the shopkeepers who had once been
his customers. Occasionally he succeeded in obtaining orders, and a
faint gleam of hope encouraged him, but he had no steady success. Mr.
Quinn's original estimate of the situation was so far justified that
after a while the religious animosity died out. Shopkeepers even
explained apologetically that they gave their orders to the Robeen
convent for purely commercial reasons.

'Their goods are cheaper than yours, and that's the truth, Mr.
Conneally.'

Hyacinth recognised that Mr. Quinn was being beaten at his own game. He
had attempted to drive the nuns out of the market by underselling them,
and now it appeared that they, too, were prepared to face a loss. It was
obvious that their losses must be great, much greater than Mr. Quinn's.
Rumours were rife of large loans raised by the Mother Superior, of
mortgages on the factory buildings and the machinery. These stories
brought very little consolation, for, as Hyacinth knew, Mr. Quinn was
very nearly at the end of his resources. He refused to borrow.

'When I am forced to close up,' he said, 'I shall do so with a clear
balance-sheet. I have no wish for bankruptcy.'

'I should like,' said Hyacinth vindictively, 'to see the Reverend Mother
reduced to paying a shilling in the pound.'

'I am afraid,' said Mr. Quinn, 'you won't see that. The convent is a
branch of an immense organization. No doubt, if it comes to a pinch,
funds will be forthcoming.'

'Yes, and they won't draw on their own purse till they have got all
they can out of the Congested Districts Board. I have no doubt they are
counting on another four thousand pounds to start them clear when they
have beaten you.'

One day, quite accidentally, Hyacinth came by a piece of information
abo