The cold bath, the early excursion into the oblong of meadow that was beginning to be a garden, the brisk walk down Trafalgar Road to business,—all these novel experiences, which for a year Edwin had been anticipating with eagerness as final and sure, had lost their savour on the following morning. He had been enough to believe that he would be happy in the new house—that the new house somehow meant the rebirth of himself and his family. Strange ! The bath-splashings and the other things gave him no pleasure, because he was saying to himself all the time, “There’s going to be a row this morning. There’s going to be a regular shindy this morning!” Yet he was accustomed to his father’s scenes... Not a word at breakfast, for which indeed Darius was very late. But a thick cloud over the breakfast-table! Maggie showed that she felt the cloud. So did even Mrs Nixon. The niece alone, unskilled in the science of meteorology, did not notice it, and was pertly bright. Edwin departed before his father, hurrying. He knew that his father, starting from the books, would ask him what he meant by daring to draw out his share from the Club without mentioning the affair, and particularly without to his safe the whole sum . He knew that his father would persist in regarding the fifty pounds as sacred, as the ark of the , and on the basis of the would build one of those cold furies that seemed to give him so a delight. On the other hand, despite his father’s of the names of Edwin’s authors—Voltaire and Byron—he did not fear to be for possessing himself of loose and poisonous literature. It was a point to his father’s credit that he never attempted any kind of censorship. Edwin never knew whether this attitude was the result of or due to a grim sporting instinct.  
There was no sign of trouble in the shop until noon. Darius was very busy superintending the of the former living-rooms upstairs into workshops, and also the jobbing builder was at work according to the plans of Osmond Orgreave. But at five minutes past twelve—just before Stifford went out to his dinner—Darius entered the ebonised , and said to Edwin, who was writing there—
 
“Show me your book.”
 
This demand surprised Edwin. ‘His’ book was the shop-sales book. He was responsible for it, and for the petty cash-book, and for the shop till. His father’s private cash-book was unknown to him, and he had no trustworthy idea of the financial totality of the business; but the management of the shop till gave him the air of being in his father’s confidence accustomed him to the discipline of anxiety, and also somewhat flattered him.
 
He produced the book. The last complete page had not been added up.
 
“Add this,” said his father.
 
Darius himself added up the few lines on the incomplete page.
 
“Stiff;” he shouted, “bring me the sales-slip.”
 
The amounts of sales conducted by Stifford himself were written on a slip of paper from which Edwin transferred the items at frequent to the book.
 
“Go to yer dinner,” said Darius to Stifford, when he appeared at the door of the cubicle with the slip.
 
“It’s not quite time yet, sir.”
 
“Go to yer dinner, I tell ye.”
 
Stifford had three-quarters of an hour for his dinner.
 
Two.
Darius combined the slip with the book and made a total.
 
“Petty cash,” he muttered shortly.
 
Edwin produced the petty cash-book, a volume of very importance.
 
“Now bring me the till.”
 
Edwin went out of the cubicle and brought the till, which was a large and japanned cash-box with a lid in two independent parts, from its well-concealed drawer behind the fancy-counter. Darius counted the coins in it and made calculations on blotting-paper, breathing all the time.
 ............