“Then you’ll be no true Hepplestall--and you are going to be. You’ll go through it as the rest of us went through it, and you’ll come out tried and true. I’ll tell you what I mean by going through it. That’s no figure of speech. We are practical men, we Hepplestalls, every man of us. We’ve diverse duties and responsibilities, but we’ve a common knowledge, and an exact one, of the processes of cotton manufacture. We all got it in the same way, and the only right way--not by theory, not by looking on, but by doing with our own hands whatever is done in these mills--or nearly everything. You’re going to be a carder and a spinner and a doubler and a weaver. You’re going to come into the place at six in the morning with the rest of the people and the only difference between you and them is that when you’ve learned a job you’ll be moved on to learn another. You’ll come to it from your university and you’ll hate it. You’ll hate it like hell, and it’ll last two years. Then you’ll have a year in Manchester and then you’ll go round the world to every branch of Hepplestalls. In about five years after you come here, you’ll begin to be fit to work with me, and if you don’t make a better Head than I am, you’ll disappoint me, Rupert.” Rupert was conscious of mutinous impulses as his father forecasted the rigorous training he was expected to undergo. How cruel a mockery was that suave office of Sir Philip! And Sir Philip himself, and all the Hepplestalls--they had all submitted to the training. They had all been “through it.” And they called England a free country! Well, he, at any rate-- He felt his father’s hand upon his knee, and looked up from his meditations. “It is a trust, Rupert,” said Sir Philip. Rupert began to hate that word and perhaps his suppressed rebellion hung out some signs, for Sir Philip added, almost, but not quite, as if he were making an appeal, “always the eldest son has been the big man of his time amongst the Hepplestalls. It hasn’t been position that’s made us; each eldest son has made himself, each has won out by merit, My brothers were a tough lot, but I’m the toughest. And you. You won’t spoil the record. You’ll be the big man, Rupert. And now we’ll go through the mill,” he went on briskly, giving Rupert no opportunity to reply.