Dark Places Read Online Free PDF

last.
    â€˜That is true, Albion,’ Father agreed when I asked him at the end of breakfast the next day. Kristabel and Mother had left the table—I did not want them listening and exchanging glances across me—and Father seemed in a jocular frame of mind, having impaled his kidney on his fork and made some remark in Latin at which I smirked uneasily, trying to convey simultaneously that I understood but had no further comment to make. Now he chewed the kidney, nodding approvingly. ‘That is all absolutely true, my boy, and it does you credit that you are considering such problems.’ I swelled with pride: Father did not often find much to praise me for.
    â€˜It does you credit, Albion,’ Father said, ‘but consider this: what is it that causes a farmer to grow more potatoes than he needs himself ? It is that others will pay him money for his excess, and with that money he will purchase, say, a pair of boots he cannot make for himself.’ I nodded, I followed, and was even beginning to guess the next stage in the argument, when he continued. ‘So you see, Albion, it would not work simply to give away the food, no one would bother to grow it.’
    He looked searchingly at me, so I nodded, ‘Yes, Father, I understand,’ and tried not to blush at the memory of the humbugs and threepences tossed into the air, for that was the wrong thing to have done, it seemed: I should not simply have given them away.
    But there was another part of the problem which I was trying to get clear in my mind. ‘So,’ I said, cautiously, unwilling to have Father think me a fool after such a promising start to this discussion, ‘so, Father, there are people without the money to buy the food?’ I was tentative, afraid his interested look would fade and he would dismiss me from his mind as a dolt: I knew Father’s opinion of my brains was not high, so I had to go carefully, but he was listening blandly. ‘Yes, Albion,’ he said patiently. ‘That is so,’ and waited for my next question.
    â€˜Why do they have no money, Father?’ I said, blurted rather, for I was ashamed of the nakedness of my question. ‘They have no money because they cannot find work, Albion,’ Father said, still patient, but I saw his finger begin to probe towards his fob-pocket for his watch, and I tried to be quick, before he lost interest altogether. ‘Why cannot they find work, Father?’ Father was pulling the watch out now and laying it on his palm as he spoke. ‘They cannot find work because they ask too much for their labour,’ he said, opening the watch and looking at the time. ‘ Tempus fugit , Albion,’ he said, and slipped his watch away, and I thought I would not get to the bottom of my problem after all.
    But as he stood and buttoned his jacket, Father said, in quite a kindly way, so that I felt less doltish, ‘You see, Albion, when they ask for wages that are too high, business cannot afford to employ them, so they cannot find work. When they ask for lower wages, business will find it profitable again to employ them, they will find work, they will have money, they will buy food, and all will be again as it ought be. Do you see, Albion?’ and, as he was leaving the room, I rushed to follow him. ‘Oh yes, Father, I understand perfectly, thank you, I see it all now,’ I gushed, but Father had rung for Manning to fetch his hat and gloves, and was no longer listening, so I went away to my room to consider the beautiful logic of what he had told me.
    I hoped never again to have an encounter such as I had suffered with my mouth full of humbug, but I also wished to rush out and find that woman with her accusing eyes, and explain the inexorable and impersonal logic of it all to her, and show her the way in which the answer to her problem was in her own hands.

Four
    AS A YOUNG MAN of good prospects approaching manhood, one who was now starting to