“Undoubtedly,” said Carroll. “Moral hurdles for the strengthening of the spirit are all very well, but occasionally there is a spirit ruined by them.”
“I think you are right,” said Anderson; “still, when the spirit does make the hurdles—”
“Oh yes, it is a very superior sort, after that,” said Carroll, laughing; “but when it doesn't— Well, I hope the boy will have tasks proportioned to his strength, and I hope he will have a try at them all, anyhow.”
“He seems to me like a boy that would,” Anderson said. “What do you think of making of him?”
“I hardly know. It depends. His mother has always talked a good deal about Eddy's studying law, but I don't know. Somehow the law has always seemed to me the road of success for the few and a slippery maze to nowhere for the many.”
A sudden thought seemed to strike Carroll; he looked a little disturbed. “By-the-way,” he said, “I forgot. You yourself—”
Anderson smiled. “Yes, I studied law,” said he.
“And gave it up?”
“Yes. I could not make a living with it.”
Carroll regarded the other man with a curious, wistful scrutiny. He looked more and more like Eddy. His next question was as full of naïveté as if the boy himself had asked it, and yet the charming, almost courtly state of the man never for one instant failed. “And so,” he said, “you tried selling butter and eggs instead of legal wisdom?” The question might have been insolent from its purport, but it was not.