One day, when he was working with the paint, John spilt some of the waste products on his leg. He cleaned it off quickly, but it left a red, painful place on his skin, which would not go away. It kept him awake at night. He told his doctor what he had spilt on it, and the doctor looked at him strangely.

The company was beginning to make a lot of money from this paint, and it had brought four hundred new jobs to the town.

John Duncan started work on Monday, and Mary Carter showed him round the factory. The most important thing that the company produced was a new paint for cars. It was a very strong, hard paint, which nothing could damage. Mary and her chemists had developed it, and they had tested it all over the world. Neither acid nor salt water could damage it, and cars came back from both the Arctic and the Sahara looking like new.

'Yes, I told you. It was a bottle of the waste products. I was looking at them in my office.'

'So these chemicals had something to do with the new paint, did they?'the doctor asked carefully.

'Oh yes.' the doctor began to write something on a piece of paper. 'Put this on night and morning, and the pain will go in a day or two. But I'm afraid the skin there will stay red for a year or two. They're nasty chemicals, Mr Duncan, you know.'

'Yes, of course.' John was in a hurry. He had to meet someone important in ten minutes. 'Look, can you give me something to put on it, or not?'

'I see.' the doctor looked out of the window thoughtfully. His fingers moved quietly on his desk. 'And your company is producing a lot of these waste products now, I suppose.'

'Yes, I know.' John smiled at him. 'But don't worry, Doctor, we're very careful with them in the factory. No one can go near them without special safe clothing. You can come and see if you like.'

'Thank you,'said John. He went towards the door.

'Where do these waste products go, when the factory has finished with them? Into the river?'

'Mr Duncan?'

'Yes?'John looked back, surprised.

'I'm very pleased to hear it,'said the doctor. He gave the piece of paper to John.

He went out of the door, and after half an hour he had for-gotten the conversation.

'Good,' said the doctor. 'I wouldn't want anyone to drink those waste products, that's all.'

'They won't, doctor,' said John. 'All the drinking water comes out of the river five kilometres upstream, you know that. Who's going to drink salt water from the river mouth, for heaven's sake? Chemists from London have checked it, too, you know, and our company lawyers know all about it. So it's not dangerous and we're not doing anything wrong. Don't worry about it.'

'Well, yes, of course,'said John.' But it's all right, you know,'he added quickly. 'It's very carefully checked, all the time. It's a big river, and we only produce a few hundred litres of the waste products a day. And we're only two kilo-metres from the sea, after all.'

He was a very busy man now. All day he had to test differ-ent types of paints, and make sure they were safe. He was also busy buying a big, comfortable house for his family, with a large field beside it, where Christine could keep a horse. The house was half a kilometre from the sea, and its gardens went down to the river. There was an empty boathouse there.

John laughed. His children had been poor for so long. But now he could buy them anything they wanted.

He could not believe how lucky he was. He had a good job at last, a fine home, and his children had everything they wanted. He only wished his wife, Rachel, was alive to enjoy it with him. There was only one thing that he could not give his children now. He could not give them back their mother.

'Can we have a boat, Dad?' Andrew asked. 'I mean, not now, of course, but one day-when you've finished paying for the house, perhaps?'

'You can have a boat now, if you want, my son,' he said happily. 'If I can afford a big house like this, I can certainly afford a small boat. We'll go fishing every week, shall we? And I'll teach you both to sail in the evenings. I've always wanted to do that, you know.'