"Well, I went and enquired for you yesterday," said Addie, at last. "You can go in for your exam, Alex ... and you can go on working there for some time yet.... I hope things will go better this time, old chap.... You're nearly twenty now.... If they don't...."
He made a vague gesture; and Alex took his arm:
"It's awfully good of you, Addie, to take so much trouble about me. I too hope ... that things will go right ... this time...."
"Mamma would have liked to see you in the army."
"Still, I'm really not cut out for a soldier.... It's a pity I didn't think of it before I went to Alkmaar.... But, when I was there I felt it at once: there's nothing of the soldier about me."
"And in that way years were lost.... Well, I do hope that now, when you're at the Merchants' School, you won't suddenly discover ... that you're not cut out for a business-man ... that you're not fit for 'trade.'.... You can become a consul, you know."
"Yes ... perhaps...."
"It's a pity, Alex, that you don't know things for certain in your own mind ... that you have no settled ideas...."
"Yes ... that's just it!..."
"But you must become something, mustn't you? You have no money, you fellows; and, even if you had ... a man must be something ... in order to do any or get any happiness out of life ... for himself and those about him...."