'Yes,' said Miss Carry (but they took no heed of her impertinence) 'in our country a bar-tender mixes drinks with his mind fixed on Niagara.'
Nay, the very effort to arouse dissatisfaction in the bosom of this man who seemed all too well contented with his circumstances was in itself meant as a kindness. Why should he be content? Why should he not get on? It was all very well to have health and strength and high spirits, and to sing tenor songs, and be a favourite with the farm-lasses; but that could not last for ever. He was throwing away his life. His chances were going by him. Why, at his age, what had so-and-so done, and what had so-and-so not done? And how had they started? What did they owe to fortune—what, rather, to their own resolution and brain?
'Ronald, my good fellow,' said his Mentor, in the most kindly way, 'if I could only get you to breathe the atmosphere of Chicago for a fortnight, I am pretty sure you wouldn't come back to stalk deer and train dogs for Lord Ailine or any other lordship.'
Miss Carry said nothing; but she pictured to herself Ronald passing down Madison Street—no longer, of course, in his weather-tanned stalking costume, but attired as the other young gentlemen to be found there; and going into Burke's Hotel for an oyster luncheon; and coming out again chewing a toothpick; and strolling on to the Grand Pacific to look at the latest telegrams. And she smiled (though, indeed, she herself had not been behindhand in urging him to get out of his present estate and better his fortunes), for there was something curiously incongruous in that picture; and she was quite convinced that in Wabash Avenue he would not look nearly as handsome nor so much at his ease as now he did.
'I am afraid,' said he, with a laugh, 'if ye put me down in a place like that, I should be sorely at a loss to tell what to turn my hand to. It's rather late in the day for me to begin and learn a new trade.'
'Nonsense, man,' the other said. 'You have the knowledge already, if you only knew how to apply it.'
'The knowledge?' Ronald repeated, with some surprise. Most of his book-reading had been in the field of English poetry; and he did not see how he could carry that to market.
Mr. Hodson took out his note-book; and began to look over the leaves.
'And you don't need to go as far as Chicago, if you would rather not,' said he.
'If you do,' said Miss Carry flippantly, 'mind you don't eat any of our pork. Pappa dear, do you know why a wise man doesn't eat pork in Illinois? Don't you know? It is because there is a trichinosis worth two of that.'