“You’re a good loser,” commented Mrs. Plumberry, as the child, accepting without protest the India rubber teat she had just put into his mouth, looked up into her face and smiled. “Perhaps you’ll be a good winner. They generally go together.” She bent down and gave him a kiss, which for Mrs. Plumberry was an unusual display of emotion. He had a knack of making his way with people, especially people who could be useful to him. It seemed a freak of Nature that, born of a narrow-chested father and a flat-breasted, small-hipped mother, he should be so strong and healthy. He never cried when he couldn’t get his own way--and he wanted his own way in all things and wanted it quickly--but would howl at the top of his voice. In the day-time it was possible to appease him swiftly; and then he would gurgle and laugh and put out his little hands to pat any cheek that might be near. But at night-time it was not so easy to keep pace with him. His father would mutter sleepy curses. How could he do his day’s work if he was to be kept awake night after night? The others had merely whimpered. A man could sleep through it. “The others” had been two girls. The first one had died when three years old, and the second had lived only a few months. “It’s because he’s strong,” explained the mother. “It does his lungs good.” “And what about my weak heart?” the man grumbled. “You don’t think about me. It’s all him now.” The woman did not answer. She knew it to be the truth. He was a good man, hard-working, sober and kind in his fretful, complaining way. Her people and she herself, had thought she had done well when she had married him. She had been in service, looked down upon by her girl acquaintances who were earning their living in factories and shops; and he had been almost a gentleman, though it was difficult to remember that now. The Strong’nth’arms had once been prosperous yeomen and had hunted with the gentry. Rumour had it that scattered members of the family were even now doing well in the colonies, and both husband and wife still cherished the hope that some far-flung relation would providentially die and leave them a fortune. Otherwise the future promised little more than an everlasting struggle against starvation. He had started as a mechanical engineer in his own workshop. There were plenty of jobs for such in Millsborough, but John Strong’nth’arm seemed to be one of those born unfortunates doomed always to choose instinctively the wrong turning. An inventor of a kind. Some of his ideas had prospered--other people. “If only I had my rights. If only I’d had justice done me. If only I hadn’t been cheated and robbed!”