"I'll tell you what will ruin you," he said brusquely. "And that is lack of spunk." He derived a pleasure from the belief, apparently; he announced it with so much gusto. "In business you must not be a coward, ma'am. You must go for the man that's 'underselling' you, stand up to him, pay him out of his own coin." Poor Mrs. Day heard him with a fainting spirit, dreary-eyed. What did she care for paying out Coman, down the street! Her heart was full of Bernard. "Now look here, ma'am; _re_-dress your window. Where's your young man? Where's Pretty?" Pretty, who cordially loathed George Boult, reluctantly appeared. "Look here, young man; to-night, when you've up-shuttered, clear out half your window. Shove it full of the best sugar you've got. Put a card on it--one that'll shout at 'em as they pass. Letters that long, do you see, and black--_black_. 'Our three-ha'penny sugar. Comparisons invited.' Just that. See? And, look here again, ma'am, stick a ha'penny, or a penny a pound, on to your other goods, to make up. Understand?" Mrs. Day faintly admitted that she understood. "Oh, these things are easy enough to manage, get the hang of 'em. I don't object to this underselling on Coman's part. A little conflict in trade wakes interest, stirs us all up, customers and salesmen. We're too much inclined in Brockenham to go to sleep. We must wake up, Mrs. Day. That's our motter." Then, with hardly a pause, and with no change of tone, he went on to the subject so near to her heart. "I have come in to speak to you, ma'am, about this boy of yours. He has conducted himself towards me with the basest ingratitude--but that we need not refer to, that don't matter, although I must say, considering what I have done for you all--" Mrs. Day glanced towards Mr. Pretty, pricking his ears, and dismissed him to his task of grinding coffee in the cellar. "Mr. Boult, if you would spare me!" she pleaded with a pitiful kind of dignity. "We owe you a great deal, I know; not one of us is ungrateful. But I beg you to be so considerate as to spare me complaints of my son." "I don't forget you are his mother, ma'am. I don't forget it for a moment. Otherwise--" "What Bernard has done is the cause of the greatest grief to me--grief I do not really know how to support. I was coming to see you, Mr. Boult. Coming to ask you--to beg of you--" He lifted his square-looking hand, clad in the new orange-coloured glove, to silence her. "Don't ask it," he said. "I know what you want me to do. Gibbon prepared me. You wish me to buy off this ungain-doing son. Not a penny of my money shall go to do it. Not a penny!" He brought the hand down smartly upon the counter, to emphasize the words. Mrs. Day, gazing sad-eyed at him, said nothing. "The boy has behaved like an ill-conditioned, ignorant cub--Well! I'll spare you. We know how he's behaved. Let him pay for it. He'll get a sickener, I don't doubt. Serve him right. Serve him well right." "But, Mr. Boult--he is my son."