specially at the docks. Might do a special at Cook's office, or in the
Continental Bradshaw."

"It 'ud give 'em confidence, George."

He would Zzzz, with his glasses reflecting the red of the glowing coals.

"No good hiding our light under a Bushel," he would remark.

I never really determined whether my uncle regarded Tono-Bungay as a
fraud, or whether he didn't come to believe in it in a kind of way by
the mere reiteration of his own assertions. I think that his average
attitude was one of kindly, almost parental, toleration. I remember
saying on one occasion, "But you don't suppose this stuff ever did a
human being the slightest good all?" and how his face assumed a look of
protest, as of one reproving harshness and dogmatism.

"You've a hard nature, George," he said. "You're too ready to run things
down. How can one TELL? How can one venture to TELL!..."

I suppose any creative and developing game would have interested me
in those years. At any rate, I know I put as much zeal into this
Tono-Bungay as any young lieutenant could have done who suddenly found
himself in command of a ship. It was extraordinarily interesting to me
to figure out the advantage accruing from this shortening of the process
or that, and to weigh it against the capital cost of the alteration. I
made a sort of machine for sticking on the labels, that I patented; to
this day there is a little trickle of royalties to me from that. I also
contrived to have our mixture made concentrated, got the bottles, which
all came sliding down a guarded slant-way, nearly filled with distilled