Читать книгу The Passionate Quest онлайн

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"No one will deny you the opportunity," Benjamin Stone assured him coldly. "Now, Matthew, what have you to say? I understand that you, also, are concerned in this."

"I am quite as determined to leave Norchester," Matthew replied, "but my reasons are entirely different ones. I have nothing against Norchester, if there were any money to be made here, but I have made up my mind that there is no future for me down at the factory."

"Why not? You are a good worker, and, in some respects, capable."

Matthew came a step nearer. His somewhat heavy face was alight with interest. He had the air of a much older man discussing a carefully thought-out problem.

"Look here," he said, "you give me two pounds ten a week for superintending the warehousing of your stock. I am worth more than that, but the job itself is too insignificant. I have studied the organisation of your factory all the way through, from the basement to the clicking room, and you're getting altogether behind the times. You've made a lot of money your way, no doubt, but the one fact you won't recognise is that times are changing. I don't see your balance sheets, but I'm convinced of one thing. You can't make any more by your present old-fashioned methods, and I'm not at all sure that you don't stand to lose a good part of what you've made. If, instead of two pounds ten a week to look after your stock of leather, you will offer me a thousand a year and allow me to remodel the factory from the cellars to the attic, remodel your system of buying and scrap half your old machinery, I might consider staying. Otherwise, I shall be glad of that hundred pounds' legacy you propose to pay me to-night, and I'm off to London with the others."