"Al-_fred_, if you please," answered Alf, planted before the fire and caressing a little waxed moustache, which had come into being during Ernie's absence. "Oh, you are igh," laughed Ernie. "I am Al-_fred_ to me own folk and Mr. Caspar to the rest," answered Alf, dogged and unbending. "Come, Alf, shake hands with your brother!" scolded his mother. Alf, his eyes still averted, extended a surly hand mechanically from the shoulder. Ern, white and flashing, took the hand. "There's for my brother!" he said. "And there's for Alf!" and tossed it from him. Then he went out. His bag was still in the hall. He was about to take it up when his father called him from the study. "You're going to stop here?" he asked; and Ernie detected a touch of the old anxiety in his voice, a suggestion of the old tremulousness in his face and figure. In all the tuzzles between the two brothers, Alf had over Ern the incalculable material advantage of the man who is not a gentleman over the man who is. "I just got to go down and see Mr. Pigott after a job, dad," Ern answered soothingly. "I'll be round again later." He went out of the house, shutting the door quietly behind him. Anne Caspar heard it go, and looking out into the passage saw that the bag had vanished too. "He's gone," she said. "Army manners," muttered Alf. "You've drove him out," continued his mother. "Ave I?" said Alf, cleaning his nails with a penknife. "I got my way to make. I don't want no angers-on to me.... Comin back on us a common soldier--not so much as a stripe to his arm, let alone a full sergeant. A fair disgrace on the family, I call it." "All for yourself always," said his mother censoriously. "Who else'd I be for then?" asked Alf, genuinely indignant. "You might be for the church," answered Anne grimly. CHAPTER XXIV ALF If Ernie was now the working-man, Alf on his side was very much the gentleman. He dressed the part to the best of his ability; and--when he remembered--even tried to talk it. But he had not arrived at his present position without a struggle. When he was through his apprenticeship, he left Hewson & Clarke, and inducing his mother to lend him a little capital, started a car and garage of his own in the Chestnuts between Old Town and the station. At first he did not prosper. The horse-industry, with a tradition of tens of thousands of years behind it, would not yield its pride of place without a struggle. Competitors were many and fierce. And just when he believed that he was finding his feet at last, a big London Syndicate started the Red Cross Garages throughout Kent and Sussex. Alf for the first time felt the full weight of capitalism--the Juggernaut with Mammon at the wheel that crushes beneath its rollers the bodies and souls of the weak and impotent. His sense of helplessness embittered him.