"I have a kind of fellow-feeling for them," said Ambrose smiling.
"How long have you been in the north?"
"Two years."
"I've been dealing with them thirty years," said Gaviller with an air of finality.
Ambrose refused to be silenced. Looking around the luxurious room he felt inclined to remark, that Gaviller had made a pretty good thing out of the despised race, but he checked himself.
"Sometimes I think we never give them a show," he said with a deprecating air, "We're always trying to cut them to our own pattern instead of taking them as they are. They are like schoolboys, as you say.
"Most of the trouble with them comes from the fact that anybody can lead them into mischief, just like boys. If we think of what we were like ourselves before we put on long trousers it helps to understand them."
Gaviller raised his eyebrows a little at hearing the law laid down by twenty-five years old.
"Ah!" he said quizzically. "In my day the use of the rod was thought necessary to make boys into men!"
Ambrose grew a little warm. "Certainly!" he said. "But it depends on the spirit with which it is applied. How can we do anything with them if we treat them like dirt?"