rupt way as they went along. 'Going to be a
schoolmaster and live on the _crambe repetita_ all your life, hey?'

'I don't know,' said Mark sullenly; 'very likely.'

'Take my advice (I'm old enough to offer it unasked); give yourself a
chance while you can of a future which won't cramp and sour and wear
you as this will. If you feel any interest in the boys----'

'Which I don't,' put in Mark.

'Exactly, which you don't--but if you did--I remember _I_ did once, in
some of 'em, and helped 'em on, and spoke to the headmaster about 'em,
and so on. Well, they'll pass out of your class and look another way
when they meet you afterwards. As for the dullards, they'll be always
with you, like the poor, down at the bottom like a sediment, sir, and
much too heavy to stir up! I can't manage 'em now, and my temper gets
the better of me, God forgive me for it, and I say things I'm sorry
for and that don't do me or them any good, and they laugh at me. But
I've got my parish to look after; it's not a large one, but it acts as
an antidote. You're not even in orders, so there's no help for you
_that_ way; and the day will come when the strain gets too much for
you, and you'll throw the whole thing up in disgust, and find yourself
forced to go through the same thing somewhere else, or begin the world
in some other capacity. Choose some line in which hard work and
endurance for years will bring you in a more substantial reward than
that.'

'Well,' said Mark, for whom this gloomy view of his prospects
reflected his own forebodings, 'I am reading for the Bar. I went up
for my call-examination the other day.'

'Ah, is that so? I'm glad to hear of it; a fine profession, sir;
constant variety and excitement--for the pleader, that is to say' (Mr.
Shelford shared the lay impression that pleading was a form of
passionate appeal to judge and jurymen), 'and of course you would
plead in court. The law has some handsome prizes in its disposal, too.
But you should have an attorney or two to push you on, they say.
Perhaps you can count on that?'

'I wish I could,' said Mark, 'but the fact is my ambition doesn't lie
in a legal direction at all. I don't care very much about the Bar.'

'Do you care very much about anything? Does your ambition lie
anywhere?'

'Not now; it did once--literature, you know; but that's all over.'

'I remember, to be sure. They rejected that Christmas piece of yours,
didn't they? Well, if you've no genuine talent for i