"People dine with me sometimes," said Luke, "who are neither nice nor intelligent. Oh, can't you see, Mabel, that we are all equal in the sight of Heaven?" "Yes," said Mabel, "but you're not in sight of Heaven--not by a long way. I don't suppose you ever will be. Besides, if he had stayed, the dinner could not have gone on." Luke's ears twitched convulsively. "I can't see that," he said. "It is unthinkable. How can you say that?" "Well," said Mabel, "one of the vegetables we are to eat to-night happens to be leeks. And, of course, he, being a plumber, would have stopped them." Luke did not swear. He simply went up to his bedroom in silence. There he began ticking certain subjects off on his finger. Number One, Den. Number Two, Slippers. Number Three, Dot and Dash. Number Four, Plumber. She would never see. She would never understand. And he was married to it. He put up both hands and pushed his ears back into position. (I had fully intended to divide this chapter into sections and to number them in plain figures. Careless of me. Thoughtless. Have a shot at it in the next chapter? I think so. Yes, almost ...) CHAPTER III 1 Pentlove, Postlethwaite and Sharper occupied a large factory, with offices and showroom attached, in Dilborough. They had no address. The name of the firm alone was quite sufficient to find them. Some people added the word Dilborough; some simply put Surrey; some merely England. They were known to everybody. Their motto--"Perfect Purity"--was in every daily paper every day. And during those weeks when the pickle manufacturing was going on, every little hamlet within a radius of twenty miles was aware of the fact if the wind set in that direction. There was no Pentlove in the firm, and no Postlethwaite, and hardly any Sharper. An ex-schoolmaster, Diggle by name, had secured the entire control of the business. He had no partners, though Sharper had a small interest in the firm. He had achieved this position by unscrupulousness and low cunning. For of real ability he had not a trace. In fact, the staff mostly called him Cain, because he was not able. Another point of resemblance was that he was not much of a hand at a sacrifice. He looked after the financial side of the business, and did a good deal of general interference in every branch of it.