It would be difficult to overrate the completeness of the change which had supervened, in both the outer and inner life of Myles Heywood, between the time when he had left his native town, and now, when he returned to it. He was very busy, very quiet, and very lonely. Sebastian had acted with the soundest wisdom in leaving his new manager to take his place alone, and alone to fight down the obstacles which he encountered, alone to strike back the ill-will, the jealousy, and the insubordination--all of which things raised their heads and gaped upon him with their mouths on his first assumption of his new office. Myles had accepted the post calmly, but he had known perfectly well that he assumed no light task. It would have been comparatively easy, if there had not been the envy and prejudices of old friends to be overcome. Thanks to the first-rate management of Mr. Sutcliffe, and to Sebastian’s own ubiquitous eye, the whole machine was in complete working order; but this, perhaps, only left all the more room for smaller spites and jealousies to make themselves felt. There was, first of all, Wilson, the faithful old cashier who had once been Myles’s superior: he was a first-rate accountant and bookkeeper, but no manager or man of business, and utterly devoid of the faculty of arranging or regulating things. None knew it better than himself, yet it was something of a trial to his feelings to see the young fellow, whom he had known from the time when he had begun life as a ‘half-time’ of eleven, placed over him. In justice to both the men, it must be said that this little jealousy soon wore off. Myles won Wilson’s heart by his manner of treating him with scrupulous respect in the presence of third persons, and without pretensions of any kind when alone with him. Wilson, too, was an intelligent man, who knew a clever man of business when he met him. Myles very soon proved his perfect capacity for his post, and after that Wilson’s soreness was at an end. He backed up ‘Mr. Heywood’ on every possible occasion, and suffered no appeal from the said Mr. Heywood’s behests.