THE WHEELS OF CHANCE
count of his literary requirements. "The fact is—I've read precious little. One don't get much of a chance, situated as I am. We have a library at business, and I've gone through that. Most Besant I've read, and a lot of Miss Braddon's and Rider Haggard and Marie Corelli—and, well—a Ouida or so. They're good stories, of course, and first-class writers, but they didn't seem to have much to do with me. But there's heaps of books one hears talked about, I haven't read."
"Don't you read any other books but novels?"
""Scarcely ever. One gets tired after business, and you can't get the books. I have been to some extension lectures, of course, ' 'Lizabethan Dramatists,' it was, but it seemed a little high-flown, you know. And I went and did wood-carving at the same place. But it didn't seem leading nowhere, and I cut my thumb and chucked it."
He made a depressing spectacle, with his face anxious and his hands limp. "It makes me sick," he said, "to think how I've been fooled with. My old schoolmaster ought to have a juiced hiding. He's a thief. He pretended to undertake to make a man of me, and he's stole twenty-three years of my life, filled me up with scraps and sweepings. Here I am! I don't know anything, and I can't do anything, and all the learning time is over."
"Is it?" she said; but he did not seem to hear her.
"My o' people didn't know any better, and went and paid thirty pounds premium—thirty pounds down—to have me made this. The G. V. promised to teach me the trade, and he never taught me
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