“It ought to be,” said Tom, “but it isn’t. Service, not greed, and there’s a hope for all of us in that, and if you want to know who taught me to see it, it was Sir Philip Hepplestall.” Rupert was in distress. Why should London, his schemes, theaters, seem so incredibly remote? Why wasn’t he angry with this grizzled fellow from the Staithley stews who dared, directly and indirectly, to lecture him? Why didn’t he resent Mary, another Bradshaw, who had brought Tom there to reprimand a Hepplestall? And why weren’t ladders provided for climbing down from high horses? “My father?” he said. “My father taught you?” It was his ancestors he declined to worship. A father was not an ancestor, and Rupert was hearing again Sir Philip’s deep sincerity as he spoke of the Samurai. “We have both learned from Sir Philip, Mr. Bradshaw. I have been near to forgetting the lesson. Did he ever speak to you of Samurai?” “Sam who?” asked Tom. “Ah,” said Rupert happily. That was his secret, that intimate ideal which Sir Philip had revealed only to his son. He hadn’t, perhaps, the soundest evidence for supposing that the confidence had been uniquely to him, but in his present dilemma it seemed entirely satisfactory--a way out and a way down. And, after all, he came down by a ladder. A great noise filled the room, ear-splitting, nerve-jarring to those who were not used to it. Rupert was not used to it, but for a moment wondered if it were external or the turmoil of his thoughts. “Only the buzzer,” William smiled. “Staithley goes home,” said Tom. But not yet. The Chief Cashier knocked perfunctorily on the door and came in with the bland air of one who had the entree at all times. “If Sir Rupert could speak to the workpeople,” he said. “Word was passed that he is here. This window looks upon the yard. May I open it?” Rupert paused for one of time’s minor fractions, and his head jerked as his father’s used to jerk. “Mr. Bradshaw,” he said, “will you step to the window with us?” It was grand; it was too grand; it was a gesture which began finely and ran to seed like rhubarb. It was florid when he wanted to be simple and he harked back in mind to a _Punch_ cartoon of some years earlier, representing the Yellow Press as a horrible person up to the knee in mud, calling out, “Chuck us another ha’penny and I’ll wallow in it.” He felt himself up to the midriff in a mud of sentimentality; for two pins, he would with ironic grace wallow in the mud. His surrender was too loathsome and insincere: he held out his hand to Tom, feeling that he was going the whole hog, parading his humiliation before the men and women of Hepplestall’s who had the idiotic wish to salute a traitor as their prince. Tom offered first aid here and shook his head. “No, thanks,” he said. “I’ve to be careful what company I keep in public. I’m Member for Staithley, but I’m Labor Member and you’re Capital.” “Aren’t we to work together in the future?” asked Rupert.