"The boy will break his neck yet," the reader said to himself. He was not
largely in his brother's confidence. The death of the horse was news to
him; he had not even known there was a steeplechase.
"What good is he doing with all this?" Sir Francis asked of himself,
sternly looking off the paper. "He takes no interest in the Brewery. He is
a man in years, and has never done a half-hour's work in his life."
Sir Francis's own half-hours of work would not have totalled up to much,
but he had business ability, nevertheless. At certain hours of the day he
was always to be found, as now, at his post, and what he did not do
himself he took care that those he paid should do efficiently.
Above the mantelpiece hung the portrait of the founder of the Brewery, or
rather of the man who had worked up the business already founded into a
phenomenally successful one. Often as the elder partner looked upon the
sensible, kindly, handsome-featured face, he reminded himself how very
dear to his father in his old age had been this unbusiness-like,
pleasure-loving, steeplechase-riding younger son, who had been but a boy
at school when the old man had died. Very frequently it was necessary for
him to remind himself of the fact; for between the duty-loving,
serious-minded, middle-aged, sorrowing widower and his half-brother was
very little in common.
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