essary for you to live
at Oxford, will it?"

"Oh, no. But then I may perhaps go into the church."

"Oh, the church, eh? Well, it is a respectable profession; only men
have to work for nothing in it."

"I wish they did, sir. If we had the voluntary system--"

"You can have that if you like. I know that the Independent
ministers--"

"I should not think of leaving the Church of England on any account."

"You have decided, then, to be a clergyman?"

"Oh, no; not decided. Indeed, I really think that if a man will work,
he may do better at the bar."

"Very well, indeed--if he have the peculiar kind of talent
necessary."

"But then, I doubt whether a practising barrister can ever really be
an honest man."

"What?"

"They have such dirty work to do. They spend their days in making out
that black is white; or, worse still, that white is black."

"Pshaw! Have a little more charity, master George, and do not be so
over-righteous. Some of the greatest men of your country have been
lawyers."

"But their being great men won't alter the fact; nor will my being
charitable. When two clear-headed men take money to advocate the
different sides of a case, each cannot think that his side is true."

"Fiddlestick! But mind, I do not want you to be a lawyer. You must
choose for yourself. If you don't like that way of earning your
bread, there are others."

"A man may be a doctor, to be sure; but I have no taste that way."

"And is that the end of the list?"

"There is literature. But literature, though the grandest occupation
in the world for a man's leisure, is, I take it, a slavish
profession."

"Grub Street, eh? Yes, I should think so. You never heard of
commerce, I suppose?"

"Commerce. Yes, I have heard of it. But I doubt whether I have the
necessary genius."

The old man looked at him as though he doubted whether or no he were
being laughed at.

"The necessary kind of genius, I mean," continued George.

"Very likely not. Your genius is adapted to dispersing, perhaps,
rather than collecting."

"I dare say it is, sir."

"And I suppose you never heard of a man with a--what is it you call
your degree? a double-first--going behind a counter. What sort of men
are the double-lasts, I wonder!"

"It is they, I rather think, who go behind the counters," said
George, who had no idea of allowing his uncle to have all the
raillery on his side.

"Is it, sir? But I rather think they don't come out last when the
pu