over. And if you want my help it's yours. I can show her what a
fine fellow you are, what a good husband you'd make. For you are a
fine person, old man; when you were born fashionable and rich it
spoiled a--"

"A superb pram-trundler," suggested Arkwright.

"Precisely. Be off now; I must work. Be off, and exhibit that
wonderful suit and those spotless white spats where they'll be
appreciated." And he dismissed the elegantly-dressed idler as a
king might rid himself of a favorite who threatened to presume
upon his master's good humor and outstay his welcome. But
Arkwright didn't greatly mind. He was used to Josh's airs. Also,
though he would not have confessed it to his inmost self, Josh's
preposterous assumptions, by sheer force of frequent and energetic
reiteration, had made upon him an impression of possible validity
--not probable, but possible; and the possible was quite enough to
stir deep down in Arkwright's soul the all but universal deference
before power. It never occurred to him to suspect there might be
design in Craig's sweeping assertions and assumptions of
superiority, that he might be shrewdly calculating that,
underneath the ridicule those obstreperous vanities would create,
there would gradually form and steadily grow a conviction of solid
truth, a conviction that Joshua Craig was indeed the personage he
professed to be--mighty, inevitably prevailing, Napoleonic.

This latent feeling of Arkwright's was, however, not strong enough
to suppress his irritation when, a few days later, he went to the
Severences for tea, and found Margaret and Josh alone in the
garden, walking up and down, engaged in a conversation that was