As regards these latter, on the day he had sounded them his son would have thought less well of him.
Ralph, on leaving Oxford, had spent a couple of years in travelling; after which he had found himself perched on a high stool in his father's bank.

The responsibility and honour of such positions is not, I believe, measured by the height of the stool, which depends upon other considerations: Ralph, indeed, who had very long legs, was fond of standing, and even of walking about, at his work.

To this exercise, however, he was obliged to devote but a limited period, for at the end of some eighteen months he had become aware of his being seriously out of health.

He had caught a violent cold, which fixed itself on his lungs and threw them into dire confusion.

He had to give up work and apply, to the letter, the sorry injunction to take care of himself.