“Leave it, there’s a good man. I’m not going to argue upon it. I hope they’ll soon be properly married and this sad business allowed to pass by and be forgot. For the minute it’s up to Ned Dingle, and I’ve been bitter sorry for him, and he knows all I think about it; but there’s no more can be done to right the wrong and ease people who feel like you, till Ned does it.”
“Your heart is speaking against your morals, Lydia, if I may say so.”
“You can’t rise to the thought that it is painful for some of us to earn our living under the same roof as that man?”
“No,” she said. “I’ve never met the man or woman so bad that I couldn’t work under the same roof with them.”
“It’s doubtfully Christian to be so large-minded in my opinion,” he said. “Do the other women up here think the same?”
“Alice Barefoot will sign; but her brother, Henry, will not.”
“Being an old sailor, no doubt he won’t,” said Mr. Pinhey. He won Miss Barefoot’s support, however, and then skirmished in the neighbourhood of the vat house. Jordan was not there, and after Mr. Life had appended his signature and Harold Spry, Kellock’s coucher, had declined to do so, Nicholas approached Philander Knox.
“I don’t know your exact opinions,” he said; “but I should be glad if you can feel on this subject with most of us serious people. You know the facts and feel it oughtn’t to go on, I expect—that is if you take life seriously, as no doubt you do.”
“The thing is to take other people’s lives seriously and your own pretty light,” said Knox. “That’s the best way, because it keeps your sense of proportion about fair, Pinhey.”
Nicholas liked these problems, but was doubtful here.
“Do you mean as a matter of morals?” he asked.
“No—as a matter of business,” replied Philander. “Because if you put yourself first always, your fellow creatures will be mighty quick to put you second, or third, or out of the running altogether. Nobody bores people worse than the man who is always thinking about himself. But if you show a proper interest in others and their hopes and fears and likes and dislikes, then the better sort will gladly give as well as take. If you want anything for nothing in this world, you won’t get it; but the more you give, the more you’ll receive, in my experience. In the matter of giving don’t stint and don’t squander; and don’t give where you’ll get nothing back of course—that’s foolish.”