Part 9 (1/2)
”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 pudding is to be proved by the eating. Success in life is not to be won by writing Greek verses; not though you write ever so many. A s.h.i.+p-load of them would not fetch you the value of this gla.s.s of wine at any market in the world.”
”Commerce is a grand thing,” said George, with an air of conviction.
”It is the proper work for men,” said his uncle, proudly.
”But I have always heard,” replied the nephew, ”that a man in this country has no right to look to commerce as a profession unless he possesses capital.” Mr. Bertram, feeling that the tables had been turned against him, finished his gla.s.s of wine and poked the fire.
A few days afterwards the same subject was again raised between them.
”You must choose for yourself, George,” said the old man; ”and you should choose quickly.”
”If I could choose for myself--which I am aware that I cannot do; for circ.u.mstances, after all, will have the decision--but, if I could choose, I would go into Parliament.”
”Go where?” said Mr. Bertram, who would have thought it as reasonable if his nephew had proposed to take a house in Belgrave Square with the view of earning a livelihood.
”Into Parliament, sir.”
”Is Parliament a profession? I never knew it before.”
”Perhaps not, ordinarily, a money-making profession; nor would I wish to make it so.”
”And what county, or what borough do you intend to honour by representing it? Perhaps the University will return you.”
”Perhaps it may some of these days.”
”And, in the meantime, you mean to live on your fellows.h.i.+p, I suppose?”
”On that and anything else that I can get.”