"You hadn't always such a high opinion of trade, Tom," said Tincroft, gently.
"No, I hadn't; but that was when I didn't know anything about it. I tell you what, John, a parcel of ignoramuses get their heads stuffed with Latin and Greek—"
"As you and I did once, Tom."
"Yes, as you and I did; and then they fancy that if a man can't spout Homer and Virgil, and the rest of the glorious old classics, as they call them, he is good-for-nothing. And they pretend to look down on men three times better than themselves, and ten times of more use in the world, because they are not up—or fancy they are not up—to the old heathenish morality, and disguised immorality, that is to be found in—"
"Hush, hush, Tom!"
"Ah yes, you say 'hush, hush,' but you know 'tis true; and I haven't patience with their pedantic vanity and pride of heart. However, that is not to the present purpose. The question is about young Tom."
"Is he set upon having his own way?" John interrogated:
"'A clerk condemned his father's soul to cross,
Who penned a stanza when he should engross'"?
"Or summing up accounts in daybook and ledger, initiating himself in the sublime mysteries of single and double entry?"
"No, that isn't it. Instead of this, the lad (and you don't know how I love him, John) won't hear of going against my plans. And so, when I was trying to make myself willing to send him to Oxford, he turns round and insists on the counting-house, though I know it will half break his heart—not because he is going into trading business, I don't mean that, but because his mind has so long been fixed on other, I won't say higher, pursuits. Now, what am I to do?"