‘You are just the same,’ said Carrie, more emphatically than before; ‘to hear you talk—’tis just as you used to.’ She looked down at Phil as she spoke. He had flung himself down on the bank at her feet, and was gazing up at her in the frankest manner possible. ‘Why, how old are you?’ she asked suddenly, as unceremonious as he was, and Phil answered without a moment’s hesitation, ‘One-and-twenty, and horribly young it is—but there is all the world to conquer, to be sure, and only one life to do it in.’
Carrie opened her eyes at this statement. ‘How?’ she inquired.
‘How? ah, that is just the question! My father wished me to enter the Service—not I! “ ’Tis a profession for gentlemen,” he said. “Yes, and for fools,” said I, and he (who was in it himself, though he’s no fool!) was rarely angry with me. My father, you know, is a curious man—oh, I shall tell you all that another time,’ said Phil, rolling over on the bank in the most childish manner; then he rose and seated himself beside Carrie. Leaning his chin on his hand he looked down at the river as it flowed below them, and went on in a more serious tone—
‘I had no mind to enter the Service, you see, because I must have something to do that I care about. To speak now before crowds and crowds of people—that would be my ambition.’
‘But what would you speak about?’ asked Carrie laughingly—she was a splendid listener!
‘Speak! I’d speak about anything, Carrie. I’d speak eloquently for half an hour upon your shoe-strings and my entire unworthiness to unloose them!’
‘I believe you would,’ laughed Carrie; ‘you should enter the Church, Phil, then each Lord’s Day you must speak for a certain time.’
‘Not the Church for me, my imagination is by far too strong for that; ’twould have me before my Bishop in a jiffy. Oh, do you remember how scared you were once when I described to you how God would come down on the gilt top of St. Paul’s?’
‘Yes indeed; I should pity your hearers did you scare them after that fashion,’ said Carrie, with a smile of reminiscence.
‘I think I shall study for the Bar,’ began Phil, and then, because in spite of his volubility he was not a bore, he started up in genuine dismay.