Thwaite [indifferently and rather incredulously]. Do they?
Merton. I shall have to think a great deal about my job. I'm going to be a doctor, and it's uphill work at first. But my uncle is a successful doctor, and that will be a help.
Thwaite. Ah, you mean he's done the work for you.
Merton [smiling]. Some of it perhaps.
Thwaite. I've not much use for doctors. Never had one inside my door.
Merton. They seem to be needed in London, luckily for me.
Thwaite. Never been there.
Merton. But you are an Englishman, aren't you?
Thwaite [sombrely]. Yes, I'm an Englishman. My father was a Yorkshire farmer; my mother was a Scotch woman. I quarrelled with him and ran away from home and I went to Liverpool. And the captain of a steamer going to Sydney took me on as cabin boy, and on board there was an Australian sheep farmer. And he brought me to his sheep run—and afterwards I married his daughter, and he died, and I went on with the sheep farming. That's my tale.