“I did not bring you here as an idle sight-seer. At first blush you dislike the factory, but it is my belief that you will come to like it as well as, I do.” Edward stared at his father who was, he saw, serious. He veritably “liked” the factory. “In fact,” Reuben was saying, “I can go further. I love this place. I made it; it is my life’s work; and I am proud of it. Hepplestall’s is a great heritance. When I hand it on to you, it will be a great possession, a great trust. How great you do not know and if I showed you now the figures in those books you would be no wiser. As yet you do not understand. Even out there in the works where things are simple you missed my meaning, but there is time to learn it all before I leave the reins to you.” “I am to decide now?” “Decide? Decide? What is there to decide? You are my eldest son.” Edward made an effort: Reuben was assuming his consent to everything. “May I confess my hope, sir? My hope was that when I had finished at Oxford, you would allow me to go to the bar.” “The bar? A cover for idleness.” Sometimes, but Edward had not intended to be idle. The bar was an occupation, gentlemanly, settling a man in London amongst his Oxford friends; it seemed to Edward that the bar would meet his tastes. If it had been land that he was to inherit, naturally he would have taken a share in its management, but there was no land: there was a factory, and he felt keen jealousy of Tom, his younger brother. It was settled that Tom should follow his uncle, Tom Verners, who was Colonel Verners now, into the Army, while he, the eldest son, who surely should have first choice, he was apparently destined will he, nill he, for this detestable factory! “I will have no son of mine a loafer. You would live in London?” “I should hope to practice there.” “I’ll have no idlers and no cockneys in my family, Edward. Hepplestall’s! Hepplestall’s! and he sneers at it.” “Oh, no, sir. Please. Not that. I feel it difficult to explain.” “Don’t try.” “I must. I think what I feel is that if we were speaking of land I as your eldest son should naturally come into possession. I should feel it, in the word you used, as a trust. But we are not speaking of land.” Reuben gripped his chair-arms till his hands grew white and recovered a self-control that had nearly slipped away. The boy was ready to approve the law of primogeniture so long as he could be fastidious about his inheritance, so long as the inheritance was land. As it was not land, he wanted to run away. He deprecated steam. He dared, the jackanapes! “No,” said Reuben, “we are not speaking of land. We are speaking of Hepplestall’s.” “If it were land,” Edward went on ingenuously, “however great the estate, you would not find me shirking my responsibility.” “I see. And as it is not land? As it is this vastly greater thing than land?” Then suavity deserted him. “Boy,” he cried, “don’t you see what an enormous thing it is to be trustee of Hepplestall’s?”