Part 4 (1/2)
”Well, you will some of these days; indeed, you do now practically.
But the subject is too long to talk of here. But as I know you won't go into the church, I expect to see you settled in London before Christmas.”
”What am I to live on, my dear fellow?”
”Like all good nephews, live on your uncle. Besides, you will have your fellows.h.i.+p; live on that, as I do.”
”You have more than your fellows.h.i.+p; and as for my uncle, to tell you the truth, I have no fancy for living on him. I am not quite sure that he doesn't mean me to think that it's charity. However, I shall have the matter out with him now.”
”Have the matter out with him!--and charity! What an a.s.s you are! An uncle is just the same as a father.”
”My uncle is not the same to me as my father.”
”No; and by all accounts it's lucky for you that he is not. Stick to your uncle, my dear fellow, and come up to London. The ball will be at your foot.”
”Did you ever read Marryat's novel, Harcourt?”
”What, Peter Simple?”
”No, that other one: I think of going out as another j.a.phet in search of a father. I have a great anxiety to know what mine's like. It's fourteen years now since I saw him.”
”He is at Teheran, isn't he?”
”At Hong Kong, I think, just at present; but I might probably catch him at Panama; he has something to do with the isthmus there.”
”You wouldn't have half the chance that j.a.phet had, and would only lose a great deal of time. Besides, if you talk of means, that would want money.”
They were now walking back towards Oxford, and had been talking about fifty indifferent subjects, when Bertram again began.
”After all, there's only one decent career for a man in England.”
”And what is the one decent career?”
”Politics and Parliament. It's all very well belonging to a free nation, and ruling oneself, if one can be one of the rulers.
Otherwise, as far as I can see, a man will suffer less from the stings of pride under an absolute monarch. There, only one man has beaten you in life; here, some seven hundred and fifty do so,--not to talk of the peers.”
”Yes, but then a fellow has some chance of being one of the seven hundred and fifty.”
”I shall go in for that, I think; only who the deuce will return me?
How does a man begin? Shall I send my compliments to the electors of Marylebone, and tell them that I am a very clever fellow?”
”Exactly; only do something first to show that you are so. I mean also to look to that; but I shall be well contented if I find myself in the house in twenty years' time,--or perhaps in thirty.”
”Ah, you mean as a lawyer.”
”How else should a man without property get into Parliament?”
”That's just what I want to know. But I have no idea, Harcourt, of waiting twenty years before I make my start in life. A man at any rate may write a book without any electors.”
”Yes, but not have it read. The author who does any good must be elected by suffrages at least as honestly obtained as those of a member of Parliament.”
CHAPTER III.