"Well, George," said he, pushing him the bottle as soon as the cloth was gone, "I suppose you have done with Oxford now?"
"Not quite, sir; I have my fellowship to receive."
"Some beggarly two hundred pounds a year, I suppose. Not that I mean to say you should not be glad to have it," he added, thus correcting the impression which his words might otherwise have made. "As you have been so long getting it, it will be better to have that than nothing. But your fellowship won't make it necessary 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."
"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."
"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.
