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160 pleasanter when there was some one to talk with, and Cyn asked, curiously,

"Then you have left the dot and dash business, have you?"

"Oh, yes. It was merely temporary with me," Clem replied; then seating himself on the sofa beside Nattie, and drawing a chair up for Cyn, between himself and Jo—Quimby being at the other end of the room, a prey to his emotions—Clem continued;

"The truth of the matter is simply this, my father, with a pig-headedness worthy of Eugene Wrayburn's M. R. F. in 'Our Mutual Friend,' determined to make a doctor of me, not on account of any qualifications of mine, but for the simple reason that a doctor is a good thing to have in a family. But I, having an intense dislike to the smell of drugs, a repugnance to knowing anything more than absolutely necessary about the 'ills that flesh is heir to,' and decided objections to having the sleep of my future life disturbed, declined, and at the same time expressed a desire to go into the store with him, and become a merchant. Upon which my most immediate ancestor waxed wroth, called me, in plain, unvarnished words, a fool; and a pretty one I was to set myself up against his will! I, who couldn't earn my salt without him to back me!