Chad has had
the free use of a great deal. But if he'll pull himself together
and come home, all the same, he'll find his account in it."
She had listened with all her interest. "And I hope to goodness
you'll find yours!"
"He'll take up his definite material reward," said Strether without
acknowledgement of this. "He's at the parting of the ways. He can
come into the business now--he can't come later."
"Is there a business?"
"Lord, yes--a big brave bouncing business. A roaring trade."
"A great shop?"
"Yes--a workshop; a great production, a great industry. The
concern's a manufacture--and a manufacture that, if it's only
properly looked after, may well be on the way to become a monopoly.
It's a little thing they make--make better, it appears, than other
people can, or than other people, at any rate, do. Mr. Newsome,
being a man of ideas, at least in that particular line," Strether
explained, "put them on it with great effect, and gave the place
altogether, in his time, an immense lift."
"It's a place in itself?"
"Well, quite a number of buildings; almost a little industrial
colony. But above all it's a thing. The article produced."
"And what IS the article produced?"
Strether looked about him as in slight reluctance to say; then the
curtain, which he saw about to rise, came to his aid.
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