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 twopence about it, Mater. It isn't as though I had any ability."

"It is not you, of course, who matters so much. It is your dear father who carries so much weight in the country."

But Mr. Philip supposed, though not at all disrespectfully, that a chap of twenty-eight was entitled to have views of his own.

Mother didn't quite agree with that general proposition. There were some things, for instance, Religion and Politics to name only two, although there were others she could have mentioned, in which it was only right for a well-born and expensively nurtured Englishman to defer to the more matured wisdom of his ancestors.

Mr. Philip was awfully sorry, but he rather believed in Progress.

Mother was a little inclined to snort at Progress. What, pray, did one who had got as far as he had want with Progress! As far as Mother could see, the current idea of Progress was to take money out of the pockets of those who were better off than yourself, and put it into your own.

"And there is no reason for you to resort to that, Phil-ipp," said Mother, with a sudden effusion of Inspired Commonsense; "because you have more than the majority."