Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. I, 1866.djvu/124

114 my mother, and I may as well save you any trouble by telling you that my mind has been made up about that a long while ago. I'll take no employment that obliges me to prop up my chin with a high cravat, and wear straps, and pass the live-long day with a set of fellows who spend their spare money on shirt-pins. That sort of work is really lower than many handicrafts; it only happens to be paid out of proportion. That's why I set myself to learn the watchmaking trade. My father was a weaver first of all. It would have been better for him if he had remained a weaver. I came home through Lancashire and saw an uncle of mine who is a weaver still. I mean to stick to the class I belong to—people who don't follow the fashions."

Mr Lyon was silent a few moments. This dialogue was far from plain sailing; he was not certain of his latitude and longitude. If the despiser of Glasgow preachers had been arguing in favour of gin and Sabbath-breaking, Mr Lyon's course would have been clearer. "Well, well," he said, deliberately, "it is true that St Paul exercised the trade of tent-making, though he was learned in all the wisdom of the Rabbis."

"St Paul was a wise man," said Felix. "Why should I want to get into the middle class because I