¡®Are you going home?¡¯ asked the other. ¡®My wife, I know, is calling on Lady Keeling, and she will pick me up there. If she has not been so fortunate as to find Lady Keeling in, she will wait for me in the motor. May we not walk down there together?¡¯ Once more we were in the by-road which had brought us westward parallel with the highway. The prisoner drove. Aunt Martha sat beside him, slim, dark, black-eyed, stately, her silver-gray hair rolled high ¨¤ la Pompadour. With a magnanimity rare in those bitter days she incited him to talk, first of New Orleans, where he had spent a month in camp on one of the public squares, and then of his far northern home, and of loved ones there, mother, wife and child. The nieces, too, gave a generous attention. Only I, riding beside the hind wheels, held solemnly aloof. Were it not that moral influences in learning mechanics, as in all other kinds of education, lie at the bottom of the whole matter, the subject of this chapter would not have been introduced. But it is the purpose, so far as possible, to notice everything that concerns an apprentice and learner, and especially what he has to deal with at the outset; hence some remarks upon the nature of apprentice engagements will not be out of place. To acquire information or knowledge of any kind successfully and permanently, it must be a work of free volition, as well as from a sense of duty or expediency; and whatever tends to create love and respect for a pursuit or calling, becomes one of the strongest incentives for its acquirement, and the interest taken by an [19] apprentice in his business is for this reason greatly influenced by the opinions that he may hold concerning the nature of his engagement. Any other fire¡ªexcepting always in an ammunition magazine¡ªis easier to handle than one in a stable. It takes time to blind plunging horses and lead them out singly. And there is no time to take. Hay and straw[Pg 208] and gunny-sacks and the dry wood of the stable go up like tinder. It has burned itself out before you can begin to extinguish it. "What'n the world are they stoppin' here for?" groaned Si. "Some woman's got a dozen aigs or a pound o' butter that she wants to send to town. I s'pose we'll stop here until she finishes churnin', or gits another aig to make up a dozen. I never did see sich putterin' along." "But I don't want to be with the Humphreys, sir," broke in Jim. "Me and Monty Scruggs¡ª" But for his great sin he fell in "At a party?" Albin said. "She's a hundred and twelve¡ªolder than that. What does she want with parties? Don't be silly." "... I ... can't...." He managed to get two words out before the whirlpool sucked him down again, the reasonless, causeless whirlpool of grief and terror, his body shaking, his mouth wide open and calling in broken sounds, the tears as hot as metal marking his face as his eyes squeezed shut. "Why, my lord," answered Turner, with composure, "I told you before that if I knew where Holgrave was, I would not tell." HoME¶ÈéENTER NUMBET 004www.55shouji.com.cn hzjiusong.com.cn www.8wx.com.cn wei16.com.cn dfhf.com.cn www.busworldasia.com.cn 3188168.com.cn gdxiangdao.com.cn henglishaoxing.com.cn edutour.com.cn