Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/42

30 'Well,' I said.

'Then I hope it may do you good then!' he cried, 'I am only saying it in that hope. I think too well of you to believe that you're blind to your own faults: and it may do you some good to see yourself as others see you.—And that's all I've got to say.'

A pause.

At last he, slowly and not unsoftly:

'I'm going away this evening Mother McCarthy told you p'r'aps? For good I shall be sorry to go My father is a silk merchant, and he wants me to enter his office. He's come up here to take me home The dear old dad! Well (he gave his shoulders a little shrug) I suppose I shall be going abroad soon. There's a branch out in China he wants me to go to or something like that'

Another pause.

Then:

'Do you want to go?' I said.

'No,' he said. 'No, I don't,' (He made a movement in his chair.) 'It's the last thing I should choose myself. But only one man in a thousand in this world can choose the profession he likes I'm my father's only son, you see,' he added.

'Well?' I said.

'Well, the long and the short of it is that I wish you wouldn't  You know what I mean, Leicester. I don't want to preach to you, but I somehow think you really might might do so much better, if you liked. You'll be a great man some day if you live, that is, and God wills it.'

'What?' said I.

'Did you ever know a man called Blake?' he asked.

'Yes,' I said, 'I did. Why?'

'Did you know he was dead?'

I was startled. I looked at him sharply.

'Dead?' I said.

'Yes. He died a little while ago.'

'How?'

'It was an accident. He fell off a ladder somehow, and his head struck upon a stone, and it gashed a great