"Don't you? Then you're very unlike anybody else that I meet. I think I had better give you power to draw at New York, San Francisco, Yokohama, Pekin, and Calcutta."
"Am I to go to Pekin?" asked Tom, with renewed melancholy.
"Well, yes;—I think so. You had better see what the various houses are doing in China. And then from Calcutta you can go up the country. By that time I dare say we shall have possession of Cabul. With such a government as we have now, thank God! the Russians will have been turned pretty nearly out of Asia by this time next year."*
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[*It has to be stated that this story was written in 1878.] |
"Am I to be away more than a year?"
"If I were you," said the father, glad to catch the glimmer of assent which was hereby implied,—"if I were you I would do it thoroughly whilst I was about it. Had I seen so much when I was young I should have been a better man of business."
"It's all the same to me," said Tom. "Say ten years, if you like it! Say twenty! I shan't ever want to come back again. Where am I to go after Cabul?"
"I didn't exactly fix it that you should go to Cabul. Of course you will write home and give me your own opinion as you travel on. You will stay two or three months probably in the States."
"Am I to go to Niagara?" he asked.
"Of course you will, if you wish it. The Falls of Niagara, I am told, are very wonderful."