ogs; but I can only draw
what I see. Somehow he seems to see things we don't, don't you know? Oh,
father, I'm determined I'd rather be a painter than anything." And he
falls to drawing horses and dogs at his uncle's table, round which the
elders are seated.

"I've settled it upstairs with J. J.," says Clive, working away with
his pen. "We shall take a studio together; perhaps we will go abroad
together. Won't that be fun, father?"

"My dear Clive," remarks Mr. Honeyman, with bland dignity, "there are
degrees in society which we must respect. You surely cannot think of
being a professional artist. Such a profession is very well for your
young protege; but for you----"

"What for me?" cries Clive. "We are no such great folks that I know of;
and if we were, I say a painter is as good as a lawyer, or a doctor,
or even a soldier. In Dr. Johnston's Life--which my father is always
reading--I like to read about Sir Joshua Reynolds best: I think he is
the best gentleman of all in the book. My! wouldn't I like to paint a
picture like Lord Heathfield in the National Gallery! Wouldn't I just! I
think I would sooner have done that, than have fought at Gibraltar. And
those Three Graces--oh, aren't they graceful! And that Cardinal Beaufort
at Dulwich!--it frightens me so, I daren't look at it. Wasn't Reynolds
a clipper, that's all! and wasn't Rubens a brick! He was an ambassador,
and Knight of the Bath; so was Vandyck. And Titian, and Raphael, and
Velasquez?--I'll just trouble you to show me better gentlemen than them,
Uncle Charles."

"Far be it from me to say that the pictorial calling is not honourable,"
says Uncle Charles; "but as the world goes there are other professions
in greater repute; and I should have thought Colonel Newcome's son----"

"He shall follow his own bent," said the Colonel; "as long as his
calling is honest it becomes a gentleman; and if he were to take a fancy
to play on the fiddle--actually on the fiddle--I shouldn't object."

"Such a rum chap there was upstairs!" Clive resumes, looking up from
his scribbling. "He was walking up and down on the landing in a
dressing-gown, with scarcely any other clothes on, holding a plate in
one hand, and a pork-chop he was munching with the other. Like this"
(and Clive draws a figure). "What do you think, sir? He was in the Cave
of Harmony, he says, that night you flared up about Captain Costigan. He
knew me at once; and he says, 'Sir, your father acted like a gentlem