"You see, Poskitt," he said, "there's one thing that's certain. A man must be either a man or a mouse. I won't be a mouse."
I was watching his face—I was at that time a big, ruddy-faced lad, with limbs that would have done credit to an offspring of Mars and Venus, and he looked the sort that would eventually end in a shop, with white cheeks above and a black tie under a sixpenny collar—and a strange revulsion came to me, farmer and landsman though I was. And I let him go on.
"I won't be a mouse, Poskitt!" he said, with a certain amount of determination. "I'll be a man! I'll make money. Now, what do you think the best way to make money, Poskitt?"
I don't think I made any answer then.
"I've thought it all out, Poskitt," he resumed. "You see, there are all sorts of professions and trades. Well, if you go into a profession, you've got to spend a great deal of money before you can make any. And in some trades you have to lay out a good deal before you can receive any profit. But there are trades, Poskitt, in which you get your money back very quickly—with profit. Now, do you know, Poskitt, the only trades are those which are dependent on what people want. You can't live without food, or clothes, or boots. Food, Poskitt, is the most important thing, isn't it? And why I talked to you is because I think you're the wisest boy in the school—which trade would you recommend me to enter upon?"
"Go and be a butcher!" I answered. "Like your father."
He shook his head in mild and deprecating fashion.
"I don't like the smell of meat," he said. "No—I shall take up some other line."
Then, as the smell of dinner came from the dining-room, he added the further remark that as our parents paid Doctor Scott regularly once a quarter, we ought to have our money's worth, and so walked away to receive his daily share of it.
III