The House of the Five Gables

"He is not able to get away. His business takes him into town every day--he goes by motor-car and comes back at night to breathe pure air. Bank Holidays do not occur every day, Mr. Kennedy. Fortunately for some of us they are but four a year."

"Of course you don't like going amongst all those poor people, Mr. Geary. That's natural. I didn't until I had to, and then I found them much the same as the rest. You haven't any poor in Hampstead, I am told."

Mr. Geary fell into the trap all unsuspectingly.

"Thank heaven"--he began, and then checking himself clumsily, he added, "that is to say we are comparatively well off as neighborhoods go. Our people are not idlers, however. Some of the foremost manufacturers in the country live in Hampstead."

"While their work-people starve in Whitechapel. It's an odd world, isn't it, Mr. Geary--and I don't suppose we shall ever know much about it. If I had made a fortune by other people's work, I think I should like some of them to live in Hampstead too. But you see, I'm prejudiced."

Sidney Geary looked at the boy as though he had heard a heresy. To him the gospel of life meant a yearly dole of coals at Christmas and a bout of pleasant "charity organizations" during the winter months. He would as soon have questioned the social position of the Archbishop of Canterbury as have criticised the conduct and the acts of the manufacturers who supported his church so generously.