"Very well. I am a comparatively prosperous man. I have no son. The boy interests me, and I scent copy in him. I also want an occasional secretary and amanuensis. I suggest that he should make his headquarters with me, and I will be responsible for his education. He shall visit you whenever and for as long as you want him. The only stipulation I make is that we have no formal agreement or business arrangement about him. I am not a man of business, and I hate legal contracts and attempts to harness the future more than anything in this world. Will you let me have the boy for as long as he is willing to stay with me?" "Certainly," said Uncle Joseph. And with that word Philip's career as a misogynist and recluse came to an official conclusion. BOOK TWO LABOR OMNIA VINCIT CHAPTER XIII THE GOLDEN AGE I PHILIP'S life during the next ten years resembled All Gaul. It was spent partly at a little house in Cheltenham, whither Uncle Joseph, with all his old austerity and cynicism thawed out of him, had conducted the Beautiful Lady two months after their marriage; partly at Red Gables; and partly at a series of educational establishments, ranging from a private school in the neighborhood of St. Albans, where he was initiated into the mysteries of Latin Prose and cricket, to the great engineering shops of the Britannia Motor Company at Coventry. Life at Red Gables was a very pleasant business. Philip's duties as secretary were of an elastic nature. Sometimes he wrote out cheques for tradesmen and coaxed Mr. Mablethorpe into signing them. Sometimes he battled with publishers about copyrights and royalties. Sometimes he acknowledged the receipt of the letters--chiefly from seminaries for young ladies--of those who wrote to express their admiration of Mr. Mablethorpe's works.