Winton over his
paper at breakfast.
"The real question is, what are yours?"
"I have none," said Mr. Winton. "I can't see my way to making any for
myself. Between us, strictly, Swain has been hard hit. He gave me my
chance in life. It isn't in my skin to pack up and leave for the sea-shore
or the mountains on the results of what he helped me to, and allow him to
put up his fight _alone_. If you understood, you'd be ashamed of me if I
did, Leslie."
"But I do understand, Daddy!" cried the girl. "What makes you think I
don't? All my life you've been telling me how you love Mr. Swain and what
a splendid big thing he did for you when you were young. Is the war making
business awfully hard for you men?"
"Close my girl," said Mr. Winton. "Bed rock close!"
"That is what cramps Mr. Swain?" she continued.
"It is what cramps all of us," said Mr. Winton. "It hit him with peculiar
force because he had made bad investments. He was running light anyway in
an effort to recoup. All of us are on a tension brought about by the
result of political changes, to which we were struggling to adjust
ourselves, when the war began working greater hardships and entailing
millions of loss and expenses.
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