"Josh is a good deal of a snob, for all his brave talk," thought he.

"But," he went on to reflect, "that's only human.

We're all impressed by externals, no matter what we may pretend to ourselves and to others.

I've been used to this sort of thing all my life and I know how little there is in it, yet I'm in much the same state of bedazzlement as Josh." Josh had a way of answering people's thoughts direct which Arkwright sometimes suspected was not altogether accidental.

He now said: "But there's a difference between your point of view and mine.