"You think that John Bull is dead and a strange generation is wearing
his clothes," said Mr. Britling. "I think you'll find very soon it's the
old John Bull. Perhaps not Mrs. Humphry Ward's John Bull, or Mrs. Henry
Wood's John Bull but true essentially to Shakespeare, Fielding, Dickens,
Meredith...."

"I suppose," he added, "there are changes. There's a new generation
grown up...."

He looked at his barn and the swimming pool. "It's a good point of yours
about the barn," he said. "What you say reminds me of that very jolly
thing of Kipling's about the old mill-wheel that began by grinding corn
and ended by driving dynamos....

"Only I admit that barn doesn't exactly drive a dynamo....

"To be frank, it's just a pleasure barn....

"The country can afford it...."


Section 2

He left it at that for the time, but throughout the afternoon Mr. Direck
had the gratification of seeing his thought floating round and round in
the back-waters of Mr. Britling's mental current. If it didn't itself
get into the stream again its reflection at any rate appeared and
reappeared. He was taken about with great assiduity throughout the
afternoon, and he got no more than occasional glimpses of the rest of