My stepfather had risen and was walking up and down the room.
"I quite see your point, my boy," he said, "and I think that you are of an age to understand me, when I say that you will never want in the future: you will inherit a certain sum on coming of age, which will be enough to keep you handsomely in any ordinary way. When I die, you will have everything of mine, and I trust you will then be in a position to make good use of it. That, I hope, is sufficient to say about financial matters; about your career, it is more difficult. If I were you, this is what I should do: I should ask Mr. Neville to come with me and should then take a continental tour. See everything, meet everybody, acquire a knowledge of mankind, virtues, and vices. Spend money when you think good may come of it; read and digest history as you go, also national law, and natural law; gain as much knowledge as you can of affairs military; study arms and armaments, from cutlasses to cannon. Your cadet corps has given you a capital foundation to work on. Then in two years return to us. That is my advice, and I know your mother will agree."
"Yes," said my mother a trifle sadly, "I agree."
"But could you not give me some idea, so that I may study for my future as well as all those things you mention?"
"I believe that if you study those things, Victor, they will be of immense importance to you in what I hope will be your career. You may trust your mother and myself to give you the best advice we can."
"Of course I do," I said, "but it is puzzling, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is, but this you may count on: you shall know everything you wish when you come of age," said my mother.
"Thank you, mother." I turned to my old tutor. "Mr. Neville, will you come with me?"
"I will," he said. "It will be a pleasure for me to renew my acquaintanceship with the continent."
"Then let us go; and, for my part, the sooner the better, for the time will pass more quickly."