‘Oh don’t,’ groaned Fan. And Oliver repented of an inveterate propensity to relieve with a kind of light humour his gravest moods. Then Fan rallied sufficiently to say, ‘If the statue be true to life, it will be like that of Horatius Cocles, “halting on one knee,” or doing something equally uncouth and grotesque.’ ‘Never mind that,’ said Oliver, who had little personal vanity, and who was glad, in the innocence of his heart, to suppose Fan was not so much hurt that she could not take him off in her turn. But Fan was simply galled into irony. She was sharpening her weapons in the little silence which succeeded for a new assault on her brother’s position. ‘Any ordinary man may be such a tradesman as you describe.’ ‘The ordinary man is long of coming, then,’ he interrupted her briskly. She paid no heed to the interruption. ‘An extraordinary man only rises to his natural level when he forsakes some common occupation for another more in keeping with his powers. You may as well pretend that God made all men equal in every respect, and it is a sin and wrong that there should be different classes in society, as hold that your talents and education can be fitly applied to a trade.’ ‘No. I say every new social movement demands extraordinary men to be its pioneers. I confess I am rather ashamed to give myself out as the extraordinary man in this case, but I may serve till a better appear.’ ‘It is not trade as it ought to be, it is trade as it is, which you are bound to take into account before you throw away all your hard-won advantages. High-flown notions may be all very well in theory, but they are not for real life,’ said Fan, hardly sensible that she was airing a terribly unchristian doctrine, only aware that Oliver was shaking himself in vehement protest. ‘The tricks of trade are proverbial.’ ‘Disgracefully proverbial,’ assented Oliver, briefly. ‘But if I thought they were universal I should be fit to hang myself. Do you infer that our father was not an honest man?’ ‘I have never said a word against father’s honesty,’ protested Fan, hotly. ‘I believe he was as honest as man could be. But he went into trade for a livelihood, not to regenerate society, as you are bold enough to propose. You will ruin yourself in the first place, I know.’