Richard did not think it strange that Leonard should have acquired so much instruction with so little direct tuition. Richard Avenel himself had been tutor to himself. He had lived too long with our go-ahead brethren, who stride the world on the other side the Atlantic with the seven-leagued boots of the Giant-killer, not to have caught their glorious fever for reading. But it was for a reading wholly different from that which was familiar to Leonard. The books he read must be new; to read old books would have seemed to him going back in the world. He fancied that new books necessarily contained new ideas--a common mistake--and our lucky adventurer was the man of his day. Tired with talking, he at length chucked the book he had run through to Leonard, and, taking out a pocket-book and pencil, amused himself with calculations on some detail of his business, after which he fell into an absorbed train of thought--part pecuniary, part ambitious. Leonard found the book interesting; it was one of the numerous works, half-statistic, half-declamatory, relating to the condition of the working-classes, which peculiarly distinguish our century, and ought to bind together rich and poor, by proving the grave attention which modern society bestows upon all that can affect the welfare of the last. "Dull stuff--theory--claptrap," said Richard, rousing himself from his reverie at last: "it can't interest you." "All books interest me, I think," said Leonard, "and this especially; for it relates to the working-class, and I am one of them." "You were yesterday, but you mayn't be to-morrow," answered Richard good-humouredly, and patting him on the shoulder. "You see, my lad, that it is the middle class which ought to govern the country. What the book says about the ignorance of country magistrates is very good; but the man writes pretty considerable trash when he wants to regulate the number of hours a free-born boy should work at a factory--only ten hours a-day--pooh! and so lose two to the nation! Labour is wealth: and if we could get men to work twenty-four hours a-day, we should be just twice as rich. If the march of civilisation is to proceed," continued Richard, loftily, "men, and boys too, must not lie a-bed doing nothing _all night_, sir." Then with a complacent tone--"We shall get to the twenty-four hours at last; and, by gad, we must, or we shan't flog the Europeans as we do now."