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 that would pay decent wages and where the hands would share in the profits. It's no use kind, well-meaning people attempting these things that don't understand business. They make a muddle of it; and then everybody points to it and says, 'See what a failure it was!' It isn't the dreamers—the theorists—that will change the world. Life's a business; it wants the business man to put it right. He hasn't got to wait for revolutions, nor even for Parliaments. He can take the world as it is, shape it to fine ends with the tools that are already in his hands. One day one of them will rise up and show the way. It just wants a big man to set it going, that's all."

They had reached the outskirts of the town, where their ways parted. Anthony had promised his mother to be home to tea. The Tetteridges were away; and she was giving a party in the drawing-room to some poor folks who had been her neighbours in Snelling's Row. Edward was a few steps ahead. Betty held out her hand. She was trembling and seemed as if she would fall. Anthony put an arm round her and held her up.

"How strong you are," she said.

The office of Mowbray and Cousins occupied a high, square, red brick house in the centre of the