The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1908-09-10
CHAPTER XIV.
Love and Discipline.

L4eanWhile Clement Mawgan was
being slowly nodded by the discipline
of labor and the equally trying disci-
pline Of obedience. How irksome it
all was no one knew but himself. He
had been used to having his W way
in everything; he did just what he
liked within the limits of his means,
selected his own time for the doing of
anything he might consider ~expedient
or necessary, took as long over any
small task as he chose, and flung i'm
patiently to others anything he did not
like.
Now everything was reversed. He
could no longer go and come as he
pleased. He had to toe the line daily
and put into every working day his
full tale of hours. Richard Jackson
was a disciplinarian; also he prided
himself on his business methods and
on his answering sense of justice. 1t
was nothing to him that Clement be-
longed to n of the Oldest families in
the country, or that he had been
trained at n of our most famous uni
versities. In a business arrangement
there was no room for sentiment of
any kind. He had hired the young
man to do certain specified work, for
which he was prepared to pay him a
liberal wage. The agreement was
that he was to put in SO many hours
a day. Saturday afternoon and the
whole of Sunday he was to have to
himself. If the arrangement did not
suit him he was free to 90 at a months
notice. There were a hundred men as
well qualified as he ready to take his
post, and who would consider them
selves immensely fortunate if they
could get it.
Clement had no complaint to make.
If the confinement and the long hours
irked him, that was largely the re-
suit of his training. He was no worse
off than the vast majority of men; in
deed, he was infinitely better off. That
Mr.. Jackson was not a sentimentalist
could not be turned into a grievance.
Mr.. Jackson had been trained in a
hard school. He had started life in a
Lancashire cotton mill, had risen to be
o~verlooker, then to be manager. Later
he started manufacturing on his own
account, and prospered. He had been
diligent, painstaking, economical. Dur
ing a period of good trade he had
made a huge fortune. Now he was a
member of parliament and the owner
of a mansion in Kensington.
That he was not an educated man
was not his fault. He could not do
everything. Nevertheless, during his
spare time he had read widely and
was a genuine lover of books. His de-
sire to be looked upon as a man of
culture was perhaps a weakness, albeit
an excusable weakness. Had he been
differently circumstanced in his
youth he might have become a man
of letters.
His business habits and training he
carried into everything. He ran his do
nestle establishment much on the
same lines as he ran his mill. There
was no lack, neither vas there n
waste. He believed in getting his
moneys worth for everything, and he
usually got it.
At the end of a month he praised
Clement for his care and diligence.
and suggested that he hould take an
extra day off. This was reward in
deed, and Clement began to feel
comfortable. He spent his brief holt
day as he spent most of his spare
time in trying to discover some trace
OF Marion West. He never allowed
himself to forget for a single day that
his main object In coming to London
was to find the woman he loved. All
else was subordinate to that. He was
eager to get on. eager to earn money,
but mainly that he might win the
greater prize; he had not yet attained
to that exalted plane when work for
Its own sake is q sufficient reward.
Had any one taken the trouble to
watch his movements he or she might
have wondered what aim or object he
had In life. He loitered slowly. and
apparently without aim. through the
most crowded streets. The shop win
dows did not appear to interest him.
The bulk of the people he did not see,
the carriages and motor cars never
claimed his attention for a moment.
Now and then an alert look came into
his eyes and a flash Of interest swept
across hts face. but only for a second.