[*It has to be stated that this story was written in 1878.]

"Am I to be away more than a year?"

"If I were you," said the father, glad to catch the glimmer of assent
which was hereby implied,--"if I were you I would do it thoroughly
whilst I was about it. Had I seen so much when I was young I should
have been a better man of business."

"It's all the same to me," said Tom. "Say ten years, if you like it!
Say twenty! I shan't ever want to come back again. Where am I to go
after Cabul?"

"I didn't exactly fix it that you should go to Cabul. Of course you
will write home and give me your own opinion as you travel on. You
will stay two or three months probably in the States."

"Am I to go to Niagara?" he asked.

"Of course you will, if you wish it. The Falls of Niagara, I am told,
are very wonderful."

"If a man is to drown himself," said Tom, "it's the sort of place to
do it effectually."

"Oh, Tom!" exclaimed his father. "Do you speak to me in that way when
I am doing everything in my power to help you in your trouble?"

"You cannot help me," said Tom.

"Circumstances will. Time will do it. Employment will do it. A sense
of your dignity as a man will do it, when you find yourself amongst
others who know nothing of what you have suffered. You revel in your
grief now because those around you know that you have failed. All
that will be changed when you are with strangers. You should not talk
to your father of drowning yourself!"

"That was wrong. I know it was wrong," said Tom, humbly. "I won't do
it if I can help it,--but perhaps I had better not go there. And how
long ought I to stay at Yokohama? Perhaps you had better put it all
down on a bit of paper." Then Sir Thomas endeavoured to explain to
him that all that he said now was in the way of advice. That it would
be in truth left to himself to go almost where he liked, and to stay
at each place almost as long as he liked;--that he would be his own
master, and that within some broad and undefined limits he would have
as much money as he pleased to spend. Surely no preparations for a
young man's tour were ever made with more alluring circumstances! But
Tom could not be tempted into any expression of satisfaction.

This, however, Sir Thomas did gain,--that before he left his son's
room it was definitely settled,--that Tom should take his departure
on the Friday, going down to Liverpool by an afternoon train on that
day. "I tell you what," said Sir