firm with him.

"'Well then, there's no denying the fact,' says he, 'if you prefer it
that way, that in the old days there was more opportunity for adventure.'

"'What about Australia?' says I.

"'Australia!' retorts he; 'what would I do there? Be a shepherd, like
you see in the picture, wear ribbons, and play the flute?'

"'There's not much of that sort of shepherding over there,' says I,
'unless I've been deceived; but if Australia ain't sufficiently
uncivilised for you, what about Africa?'

"'What's the good of Africa?' replies he; 'you don't read advertisements
in the "Clerkenwell News": "Young men wanted as explorers." I'd drift
into a barber's shop at Cape Town more likely than anything else.'

"'What about the gold diggings?' I suggests. I like to see a youngster
with the spirit of adventure in him. It shows grit as a rule.

"'Played out,' says he. 'You are employed by a company, wages ten
dollars a week, and a pension for your old age. Everything's played
out,' he continues. 'Men ain't wanted nowadays. There's only room for
clerks, and intelligent artisans, and shopboys.'

"'Go for a soldier,' says I; 'there's excitement for you.'

"'That would have been all right,' says he, 'in the days when there was
real fighting.'

"'There's a good bit of it going about nowadays,' I says. 'We are
generally at it, on and off, between shouting about the blessings of
peace.'

"'Not the sort of fighting I mean,' replies he; 'I want to do something
myself, not be one of a row.'

"'Well,' I says, 'I give you up. You've dropped into the wrong world it
seems to me. We don't seem able to cater for you here.'

"'I've come a bit too late,' he answers; 'that's the mistake I've made.
Two hundred years ago there were lots of things a fellow might have
done.'

"'Yes, I know what's in your mind,' I says: 'pirates.'

"'Yes, pirates would be all right,' says he; 'they got plenty of sea-air
and exercise, and didn't need to join a blooming funeral club.'

"'You've got ideas above your station,' I says. 'You work hard, and one
day you'll have a milk-shop of your own, and be walking out with a pretty
housemaid on your arm, feeling as if you were the Prince of Wales
himself.'

"'Stow it!' he says; 'it makes me shiver for fear it might come true. I'm
not cut out for a respectable cove, and I won't be one neither, if I can
help it!'

"'What do you mean to be, then?' I says; 'we've all got to be something,
until w