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hard being a small business man. A Problem-solver. A Self-mover against all the obstacles of the world.
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    Next day, after calling on the two cafés and giving them a sample range of his cordials and some sales talking—although he’d promised Thelma he would take a complete rest—he returned to the guest-house and saw Coffey talking with a stranger in the downstairs hall.
    It turned out to be the Union Man from the city, arrived on the midday train.
    George noticed he wore riding-boots—from the city and he wore riding-boots.
    From the look and sound of it, Coffey was taking a brow beating.
    George joined them, standing hands on hips, eyes to the floor, listening to the Union Man with great impatience.
    â€˜And you’ll pay them for their holidays,’ the Union Man said.
    George had always found this outrageous. Why should he pay for another man’s holiday?
    George butted in, ‘Every business has to arrange its own affairs.’
    â€˜And who the hell are you?’
    George decided not to answer. The Union Man turned to Coffey and said, ‘Who is this person?’
    â€˜This is George McDowell, a business friend.’
    â€˜George McDowell—by god, I know about you—you run some sort of damn soft-drink factory down the coast—my god, yes, I’ve heard all about you. You keep your nose out of this, McDowell.’
    George was rather pleased that he was known, but did not have a clue for what reason he might be known.
    â€˜I’m making this my business,’ George heard himself say.
    â€˜Look, McDowell, go back down the coast and back to your rot-gut lolly-water.’
    In a second of fury George was about to say, ‘I’ll take you to court for saying that’, but remembered he was opposed to using the courts in man-to-man situations, and so, instead, he seized the Union Man by the scruff of the neck and seat of the trousers and tried to frog-march him out of the guest-house. They stumbled together into the slow sunlight of the afternoon.
    The Union Man freed himself with a twist, caught more by surprise than by George.
    Shouting at George, he said something about the Factory Act and being empowered and not to lay a finger.
    Coffey limped quickly down the steps, upset, restrained George, muttering, ‘Trouble enough.’
    George said, ‘You better not show yourself around my factory.’
    The Union Man said that was just what he intended doing and thanked him for the idea.
    They stood there in the street, opposed, and out of breath.
    â€˜Please,’ Coffey said, holding George’s arm.
    Delighted to his heart that he’d thrown the Union Man off the premises but urged away by Coffey, George went off, leaving Coffey in his own mess. Coffey lacked stomach.
    George slapped his thigh with exhilaration as he went along the streets in no particular direction, reliving the incident.
    Finally he went to the California Café and had a soda with plenty of chipped ice.
    He said to Margoulis that freedom of enterprise, freedom to organise our own lives, would be finished if we let inspectors, city Union People and all the rest push us around.
    Margoulis appeared not quite comprehending, nevertheless agreed, and went on wiping the glasses left by the Saturday matinée interval.
    He took the opportunity to point out to Margoulis that with bottled drinks he wouldn’t have to wash up the glasses.
    But as a gesture of goodwill he admired Margoulis’s new soda fountain, refrigerated wells, goose-neck taps.
    Riding-boots.
    He’d like to see him try.
    The remark which hurt the most was the Union Man saying something about him living in the dark ages. For a go-ahead man, that hurt.
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    Back in his room at Wychwoode, no sign of the Union Man, he lay on his bed in the late hot afternoon,hands behind his head, and drifted from exhilaration into miserableness.
    He had a thought about himself which made him miserable. It was this: I