e what you have decided
on."

Phil did as the old soldier suggested. He took the paper to the office,
and during the day thought the matter out, finally deciding to make the
plunge and find out for himself what roughing it really meant.

"After all," he mused, as he absently traced lines and figures on the
blotting-paper, "I shall be in just the position I might have occupied
had not Father taken me from home. My mother was a poor widow, and long
ago I should have had to earn my living and help to keep her too. I'll
do it. I cannot put up with this office life. A few years later it
might be different, but now it stifles me."

Many a wiseacre might shake his head at Phil's cogitations, and more
emphatically still at his determination to abandon a certain livelihood
for an extremely uncertain one. "Do not think of leaving the office,"
some would say, "till a better place offers itself"; or "Remain where
you are till you are thoroughly acquainted with business life, and can
command a higher salary." Certainly the majority would be strongly
against his applying for the post proposed by the sergeant-major.

But deep in Phil's heart was a desire to show his adoptive parents that
he had profited by their kindness, and was able to work his way up in
the world. He knew that by leaving his present place he would give
occasion for more disappointment; but then, after many a chat with
others similarly situated, and being, for all his spirits, a thoughtful
young fellow who looked to the future, he came to the conclusion that
here he had no opportunity of rising. He knew that whenever a vacancy
in some business house did occur there were plenty asking for it, and he
knew, too, that without means at their disposal those who were selected
had prospects none too brilliant. Many did rise undoubtedly from the
office-stool to the armchair of the manager. But how many? Why should
that good fortune come his way? No, in an office he felt like a canary
in a cage; therefore he determined to forsake the life and seek one with
more of the open air about it, and a spice of danger and hardship thrown
in. Who could say that luck would not come his way? If it did, perhaps
it would give him just that necessary heave which would enable him to
set foot upon the first rung of the ladder which leads upward to honour
and glory, and a position of standing in the world.

It was a brilliant prospect, and it must be admitted that Phil built