Samuel Butler: The Way of All Flesh

70. CHAPTER LXX (continued)

Mr Larkins said a great deal more and wound up by taking me to see the place where his own men worked. "This is a paradise," he said, "compared to most workshops. What gentleman could stand this air, think you, for a fortnight?"

I was glad enough to get out of the hot, fetid atmosphere in five minutes, and saw that there was no brick of Ernest's prison to be loosened by going and working among tailors in a workshop.

Mr Larkins wound up by saying that even if my protege were a much better workman than he probably was, no master would give him employment, for fear of creating a bother among the men.

I left, feeling that I ought to have thought of all this myself, and was more than ever perplexed as to whether I had not better let my young friend have a few thousand pounds and send him out to the colonies, when, on my return home at about five o'clock, I found him waiting for me, radiant, and declaring that he had found all he wanted.