"That's you and his mother," said the schoolmaster censoriously. "Saving useless human material that ought to be scrapped. And you call yourself a Man of Science! In a properly ordered community you'd stand your trial at Lewes Assizes, the two of you—for adding to the criminal classes. Now if we were back in the good old days, they'd have exposed Alf at birth—and quite right, too."
"Quite so," said Mr. Trupp. "Your Christianity has a lot to answer for, as I've remarked before."
It fell to Mr. Pigott to find a job of work for Ernie when his favourite left school: for at that date there were no Labour Bureaux, no Juvenile Advisory Committees, no attempt to make the most of the country's one solid asset—its Youth. And the rich had not yet made their grand discovery of the last twenty-five years—that the poor have bodies; and that these bodies must be saved, even if it cost a little more than saving their souls, which can always be done upon the cheap.
Mr. Pigott had little difficulty in his self-imposed task, for he did not mean to remain a schoolmaster all his life, and was already dabbling in the commercial life of the growing town.
Ernie started as an office-boy in a coal-merchant's office in Cornfield Road by the Central Station, which formed the junction between the Old Town and the New.
Before the boy embarked on his career, Mr. Pigott invited him to tea and lecture.
"It's your own fault if you don't get on," said the schoolmaster aggressively after the muffins. "Rests with yourself. Office boy to President—like they do in America. Make a romance of it."
"I shall try, sir," cried Era, with the easy enthusiasm characteristic of him.
"I'll lay you won't, then!" retorted the other rudely. "I'll lay all the work I've put into you these ten years past goes down the drain. Now your grandfather..."
He stopped short, remembering Mrs. Caspar had told him that their origin had been kept from the two boys....