k,
blows the fire with a quarto, and cuts candles with a razor, he finds
it passing strange that he should be "had up" for punishment. To be fat
without food, to be warm without fire, to be wakeful without sleep, to
be clad without clothes, to be known as a vagabond, and to pass current
for unblemished honesty, to be praised as a liar, and then thrashed for
lying,--is too much to expect at fifteen years of age.

Lastly, as to Betty's I had no regrets. The occupation of horse-boy,
like the profession of physic, has no "avenir." The utmost the most
aspiring can promise to himself is to hold more horses than his
neighbors, as the Doctor's success is to order more "senna." There
is nothing beyond these; no higher path opens to him who feels the
necessity for an "upward course." It is a ladder with but one round to
it! No, no; I was right to "sell out" there.

My steeplechase might have led to something,--that is, I might have
become a jockey; but then, again, one's light weight, like a "contralto"
voice, is sure to vanish after a year or two; and then, from the heyday
of popularity, you sink down into a bad groom or a fourth-rate tenor,
just as if, after reaching a silk gown at the bar, a man had to begin
life again as crier in the Exchequer! Besides, in all these various
walks I should have had the worst of all "trammels," a patron. Now, if
any resolve had thoroughly fixed itself in my mind, it was this: never
to have a patron, never to be bound to any man who, because he had once
set you on your legs, should regulate the pace you were to walk through
a long life. To do this, one should be born without a particle of
manhood's spirit,--absolutely without volition; otherwise you go through
life a living lie, talking sentiments that are not yours, and wearing a
livery in your heart as well as on your back!

Why do we hear such tirades about the ingratitude of men, who, being
once assisted by others,--their inferiors in everything save gold,--soar
above the low routine of toadyism, and rise into personal independence?
Let us remember that the contract was never a fair one, and that a whole
life's degradation is a heavy sum to pay for a dinner with his Grace,
or a cup of tea with her Highness. "My Lord," I am aware, thinks
differently; and it is one of the very pleasant delusions of his
high station to fancy that little folk are dependent upon him,--what
consequence they obtain among their fellows by his recognition in
publi