You know best.

  RAMSDEN. It was something about his daughter.

  OCTAVIUS. [eagerly] About Ann! Oh, do tell me that, Mr Ramsden.

  RAMSDEN. Well, he said he was glad, after all, you were not his son, because he thought that someday Annie and you - [Octavius blushes vividly]. Well, perhaps I shouldn't have told you. But he was in earnest.

  OCTAVIUS. Oh, if only I thought I had a chance! You know, Mr Ramsden, I don't care about money or about what people call position; and I can't bring myself to take an interest in the business of struggling for them. Well, Ann has a most exquisite nature; but she is so accustomed to be in the thick of that sort of thing that she thinks a man's character incomplete if he is not ambitious. She knows that if she married me she would have to reason herself out of being ashamed of me for not being a big success of some kind.

  RAMSDEN. [Getting up and planting himself with his back to the fireplace] Nonsense, my boy, nonsense! You're too modest. What does she know about the real value of men at her age? [More seriously] Besides, she's a wonderfully dutiful girl. Her father's wish would be sacred to her. Do you know that since she grew up to years of discretion, I don't believe she has ever once given her own wish as a reason for doing anything or not doing it. It's always "Father wishes me to," or "Mother wouldn't like it." It's really almost a fault in her. I have often told her she must learn to think for herself.

  OCTAVIUS. [shaking his head] I couldn't ask her to marry me because her father wished it, Mr Ramsden.

  RAMSDEN. Well, perhaps not. No: of course not. I see that. No: you certainly couldn't. But when you win her on your own merits, it will be a great happiness to her to fulfil her father's desire as well as her own. Eh? Come! you'll ask her, won't you?

  OCTAVIUS. [with sad gaiety] At all events I promise you I shall never ask anyone else.

  RAMSDEN. Oh, you shan't need to. She'll accept you, my boy - although [here be suddenly becomes very serious indeed] you have one great drawback.

  OCTAVIUS. [anxiously] What drawback is that, Mr Ramsden? I should rather say which of my many drawbacks?

  RAMSDEN. I'll tell you, Octavius. [He takes from the table a book bound in red cloth]. I have in my hand a copy of the most infamous, the most scandalous, the most mischievous, the most blackguardly book that ever escaped burning at the hands of the common hangman. I have not read it: I would not soil my mind with such filth; but I have read what the papers say of it. The title is quite enough for me.