"Not quite. You don't say anything. Besides, your father isn't as big a fool as those London Leaguers who started the silly show. Sir Maurice Gedge and all that crowd. He didn't invent the beastly thing."
"No," said Horace mournfully, "he hasn't even the merit of originality."
He meditated, still mournful.
"Look here, Ralph, what did that blackguard Hitchin mean?"
"He isn't a blackguard. He's a ripping good sort. I can tell you, if every employer in this confounded commercial country was as honest as old Hitchin, there wouldn't be any labour question worth talking about."
"Damn his honesty. What did he mean? Was it true what he said?"
"Was what true?"
"Why, that my father turned the Ballingers out?"
"Yes; I'm afraid it was."
"I say, how disgusting of him. You know I always thought he was a bit of a fool, my father; but I didn't know he was that beastly kind of fool."