“I'll not make a sailor of him, like that sea-wolf yonder; nor a diplomatist, like my silent friend in the corner. Neither shall he be a soldier till British armies begin to do something better than hunt out illicit stills and protect process-servers.”
“A politician, perhaps?”
“Certainly not, sir. There 's no credit in belonging to a Parliament brought down to the meridian of soap-boilers and bankrupt bill-brokers.”
“There's the Church, Sir Roger,” chimed in Eccles.
“There's the Pope's Church, with some good prizes in the wheel; but your branch, Master Bob, is a small concern, and it is trembling, besides. No. I 'll make him none of these. It is in our vulgar passion for money-getting we throw our boys into this or that career in life, and we narrow to the stupid formula of some profession abilities that were meant for mankind. I mean Digby to deal with the world; and to fit him for the task, he shall learn as much of human nature as I can afford to teach him.”
“Ah, there's great truth in that, very great truth; very wise and very original too,” were the comments that ran round the board.
Excited by this theme, and elated by his success, my father went on:—
“If you want a boy to ride, you don't limit him to the quiet hackney that neither pulls nor shies, neither bolts nor plunges; and so, if you wish your son to know his fellow-men, you don't keep him in a charmed circle of deans and archdeacons, but you throw him fearlessly into contact with old debauchees like Hotham, or abandoned scamps of the style of Cleremont,”—and here he had to wait till the laughter subsided to add, “and, last of all, you take care to provide him with a finishing tutor like Eccles.”
“I knew your turn was coming, Bob,” whispered Hotham; but still all laughed heartily, well satisfied to stand ridicule themselves if others were only pilloried with them.
When dinner was over, we sat about a quarter of an hour, not more, and then adjourned to coffee in a small room that seemed half boudoir, half conservatory. As I loitered about, having no one to speak to, I found myself at last in a little shrubbery, through which a sort of labyrinth meandered. It was a taste of the day revived from olden times, and amazed me much by its novelty. While I was puzzling myself to find out the path that led out of the entanglement, I heard a voice I knew at once to be Hotham's, saying,—