But beyond these practical aspirations lay a fairer region. Philip was in love. Not with any material pink-and-white charmer, but, after the perfectly healthy and natural manner of the young man before he grows cynical or _blasé_ with experience, with Love itself. Only that. At present he was more concerned with the abstract than the concrete. At this period he was inclined to regard matrimony much as a child regards cake--namely, as a consummation to be achieved only after a long mastication of bread-and-butter. At present he was in the thick of the bread-and-butter. But when he had worked strenuously for perhaps ten years, he would assuredly encounter his Lady--he had no clear idea what she was like, but he was absolutely confident of her existence--and would marry her. Then he would be paid in full. Troubles would be halved and joys doubled, and life itself would be the sweeter for the long years of hard service and clean living and high endeavour that lay at present between the dream and its fulfilment. Meanwhile he was content to hitch his wagon to a star and proceed with the day's work. Business first. CHAPTER XVII PEOPLE FOR six months Philip continued to give rope to his esteemed colleagues Messrs. Atherton and Murgatroyd, and within that period the pair duly hanged themselves. Mr. Murgatroyd went first. For a whole winter he waited patiently for Philip's reforming zeal to spend itself; and then, finding that things were no better but rather grew worse, he retired from the conflict like a prudent man, and invested his not inconsiderable savings in a wayside garage upon a lonely stretch of the Great North Road, where motorists, who are always in a hurry, would not be disposed to haggle over the price of petrol or the cost of tyre-repairs. He parted from Philip without rancour, and another and younger man was sent up from headquarters to take his place. Mr. Atherton was not so easy to eject, and was only disposed of in the fulness of time and by the process of filling up the cup. But he went at last, and the change of atmosphere throughout the entire establishment was most noticeable. The two clerks and the office-boy carried out their duties with what is known in transatlantic business circles as "a punch"; the books were put in order; accounts were straightened out; business increased; headquarters said encouraging things. For the present Philip decided not to ask for a successor to Atherton. He felt that he wanted to run the whole Universe single-handed in those days.